Apparatus and methods for evaluating a quality of a locate operation for underground utility

ABSTRACT

Methods, apparatus and systems for computer-aided determination of quality assessment for locate and marking operations. In one example, a quality assessment decision is solely under the discretion of a human reviewer, albeit facilitated in some respects by computer-aided display of information, and electronic record keeping and communication functions associated with the quality assessment result(s). In another example, information related to a locate and marking operation is electronically analyzed such that a quality assessment is not based solely on human discretion, but rather based at least in part on some predetermined criteria and/or metrics that facilitate an automated determination of quality assessment.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C. §120,as a continuation (CON) of U.S. Non-provisional patent application Ser.No. 14/802,679, filed Jul. 17, 2015, entitled “Apparatus and Methods forEvaluating a Quality of a Locate Operation for Underground Utilities.”

Ser. No. 14/802,679 claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C. §120, asa continuation (CON) of U.S. Non-provisional patent application Ser. No.14/665,518, filed Mar. 23, 2015, entitled “Methods and Apparatus forAnalyzing Locate and Marking Operations.”

Ser. No. 14/665,518 claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C. §120, asa continuation (CON) of U.S. Non-provisional patent application Ser. No.14/075,011, filed Nov. 8, 2013, entitled “Methods and Apparatus forAnalyzing Locate and Marking Operations with Respect to EnvironmentalLandmarks.”

Ser. No. 14/075,011, filed Nov. 8, 2013, claims a priority benefit,under 35 U.S.C. §120, as a continuation (CON) of U.S. Non-provisionalpatent application Ser. No. 12/572,260, filed Oct. 1, 2009, entitled“Methods and Apparatus for Analyzing Locate and Marking Operations WithRespect to Environmental Landmarks.”

Ser. No. 12/572,260 claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C. §120, asa continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. Non-provisional patent applicationSer. No. 12/572,202, filed Oct. 1, 2009, entitled “Methods and Apparatusfor Analyzing Locate and Marking Operations With Respect to HistoricalInformation,” which in turn claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C.§119(e), of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/102,186,filed on Oct. 2, 2008, entitled “Data Acquisition System For And MethodOf Analyzing Locate Operations With Respect To Historical Tickets.”

Ser. No. 12/572,260 claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C. §120, asa continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. Non-provisional patent applicationSer. No. 12/571,356, filed Sep. 30, 2009, entitled “Methods andApparatus for Analyzing Locate and Marking Operations With Respect toFacilities Maps,” which in turn claims a priority benefit, under 35U.S.C. §119(e), of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No.61/102,169, filed on Oct. 2, 2008, entitled “Data Acquisition System ForAnd Method Of Analyzing Locate Operations With Respect To FacilitiesMaps.”

Ser. No. 12/571,356 also claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C.§120, as a continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. Non-provisional patentapplication Ser. No. 12/493,109, filed Jun. 26, 2009, entitled “Methodsand Apparatus for Quality Assessment of a Field Service Operation.”

Ser. No. 12/493,109 also claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C.§120, as a continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. Non-provisional patentapplication Ser. No. 12/204,454, filed Sep. 4, 2008, entitled “TicketApproval System and Method of Performing Quality Control in FieldService Applications,” which in turn claims a priority benefit, under 35U.S.C. §119(e), of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No.61/076,253, filed on Jun. 27, 2008, entitled “Ticket Approval System andMethod of Performing Quality Control in Field Service Applications.”

Ser. No. 12/571,356 also claims a priority benefit, under 35 U.S.C.§120, as a continuation-in-part (CIP) of U.S. Non-provisionalapplication Ser. No. 12/569,192, filed on Sep. 29, 2009, entitled“Methods, Apparatus, and Systems for Generating Electronic Records ofLocate and Marking Operations, and Combined Locate and Marking Apparatusfor Same,” which in turn claims the benefit, under 35 U.S.C. §119(e), ofU.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/102,122, filed on Oct. 2, 2008,entitled “Combination Locate and Marking Device With a Data AcquisitionSystem Installed Therein, and Associated Methods.”

Each of the above-identified applications is incorporated by referenceherein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Field service operations may be any operation in which companiesdispatch technicians and/or other staff to perform certain activities,for example, installations, services and/or repairs. Field serviceoperations may exist in various industries, examples of which include,but are not limited to, network installations, utility installations,security systems, construction, medical equipment, heating, ventilatingand air conditioning (HVAC) and the like.

An example of a field service operation in the construction industry isa so-called “locate and marking operation,” also commonly referred tomore simply as a “locate operation” (or sometimes merely as “a locate”).In a typical locate operation, a locate technician visits a work site inwhich there is a plan to disturb the ground (e.g., excavate, dig one ormore holes and/or trenches, bore, etc.) so as to determine a presence oran absence of one or more underground facilities (such as various typesof utility cables and pipes) in a dig area to be excavated or disturbedat the work site. In some instances, a locate operation may be requestedfor a “design” project, in which there may be no immediate plan toexcavate or otherwise disturb the ground, but nonetheless informationabout a presence or absence of one or more underground facilities at awork site may be valuable to inform a planning, permitting and/orengineering design phase of a future construction project.

In many states, an excavator who plans to disturb ground at a work siteis required by law to notify any potentially affected undergroundfacility owners prior to undertaking an excavation activity. Advancednotice of excavation activities may be provided by an excavator (oranother party) by contacting a “one-call center.” One-call centerstypically are operated by a consortium of underground facility ownersfor the purposes of receiving excavation notices and in turn notifyingfacility owners and/or their agents of a plan to excavate. As part of anadvanced notification, excavators typically provide to the one-callcenter various information relating to the planned activity, including alocation (e.g., address) of the work site and a description of the digarea to be excavated or otherwise disturbed at the work site.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example in which a locate operation is initiatedas a result of an excavator 110 providing an excavation notice to aone-call center 120. An excavation notice also is commonly referred toas a “locate request,” and may be provided by the excavator to theone-call center via an electronic mail message, information entry via awebsite maintained by the one-call center, or a telephone conversationbetween the excavator and a human operator at the one-call center. Thelocate request may include an address or some other location-relatedinformation describing the geographic location of a work site at whichthe excavation is to be performed, as well as a description of the digarea (e.g., a text description), such as its location relative tocertain landmarks and/or its approximate dimensions, within which thereis a plan to disturb the ground at the work site. One-call centerssimilarly may receive locate requests for design projects (for which, asdiscussed above, there may be no immediate plan to excavate or otherwisedisturb the ground).

Using the information provided in a locate request for plannedexcavation or design projects, the one-call center identifies certainunderground facilities that may be present at the indicated work site.For this purpose, many one-call centers typically maintain a collection“polygon maps” which indicate, within a given geographic area over whichthe one-call center has jurisdiction, generally where undergroundfacilities may be found relative to some geographic reference frame orcoordinate system.

Polygon maps typically are provided to the one-call centers byunderground facilities owners within the jurisdiction of the one callcenter (“members” of the one-call center). A one-call center firstprovides the facility owner/member with one or more maps (e.g., streetor property maps) within the jurisdiction, on which are superimposedsome type of grid or coordinate system employed by the one-call centeras a geographic frame of reference. Using the maps provided by theone-call center, the respective facilities owners/members draw one ormore polygons on each map to indicate an area within which theirfacilities generally are disposed underground (without indicating thefacilities themselves). These polygons themselves do not preciselyindicate geographic locations of respective underground facilities;rather, the area enclosed by a given polygon generally provides anover-inclusive indication of where a given facilities owner'sunderground facilities are disposed. Different facilities owners/membersmay draw polygons of different sizes around areas including theirunderground facilities, and in some instances such polygons can coverappreciably large geographic regions (e.g., an entire subdivision of aresidential area), which may further obfuscate the actual/preciselocation of respective underground facilities.

Based on the polygon maps collected from the facilities owners/members,the one-call center may in some instances create composite polygon mapsto show polygons of multiple different members on a single map. Whetherusing single member or composite polygon maps, the one-call centerexamines the address or location information provided in the locaterequest and identifies a significant buffer zone around an identifiedwork site so as to make an over-inclusive identification of facilitiesowners/members that may have underground facilities present (e.g., toerr on the side of caution). In particular, based on this generallyover-inclusive buffer zone around the identified work site (and in someinstances significantly over-inclusive buffer zone), the one-call centerconsults the polygon maps to identify which member polygons intersectwith all or a portion of the buffer zone so as to notify theseunderground facility owners/members and/or their agents of the proposedexcavation or design project. Again, it should be appreciated that thebuffer zones around an indicated work site utilized by one-call centersfor this purpose typically embrace a geographic area that includes butgoes well beyond the actual work site, and in many cases the geographicarea enclosed by a buffer zone is significantly larger than the actualdig area in which excavation or other similar activities are planned.Similarly, as noted above, the area enclosed by a given member polygongenerally does not provide a precise indication of where one or moreunderground facilities may in fact be found.

In some instances, one-call centers may also or alternatively haveaccess to various existing maps of underground facilities in theirjurisdiction, referred to as “facilities maps.” Facilities mapstypically are maintained by facilities owners/members within thejurisdiction and show, for respective different utility types, whereunderground facilities purportedly may be found relative to somegeographic reference frame or coordinate system (e.g., a grid, a streetor property map, GPS latitude and longitude coordinates, etc.).Facilities maps generally provide somewhat more detail than polygon mapsprovided by facilities owners/members; however, in some instances theinformation contained in facilities maps may not be accurate and/orcomplete. For at least this reason, whether using polygon maps orfacilities maps, as noted above the one-call center utilizes asignificant buffer zone around an identified work site so as to make anover-inclusive identification of facilities owners/members that may haveunderground facilities present.

Once facilities implicated by the locate request are identified by aone-call center (e.g., via the polygon map/buffer zone process), theone-call center generates a “locate request ticket” (also known as a“locate ticket,” or simply a “ticket”). The locate request ticketessentially constitutes an instruction to inspect a work site andtypically identifies the work site of the proposed excavation or designand a description of the dig area, typically lists on the ticket all ofthe underground facilities that may be present at the work site (e.g.,by providing a member code for the facility owner whose polygon fallswithin a given buffer zone), and may also include various otherinformation relevant to the proposed excavation or design (e.g., thename of the excavation company, a name of a property owner or partycontracting the excavation company to perform the excavation, etc.). Theone-call center sends the ticket to one or more underground facilityowners 140 and/or one or more locate service providers 130 (who may beacting as contracted agents of the facility owners) so that they canconduct a locate and marking operation to verify a presence or absenceof the underground facilities in the dig area. For example, in someinstances, a given underground facility owner 140 may operate its ownfleet of locate technicians (e.g., locate technician 145), in which casethe one-call center 120 may send the ticket to the underground facilityowner 140. In other instances, a given facility owner may contract witha locate service provider to receive locate request tickets and performa locate and marking operation in response to received tickets on theirbehalf.

Upon receiving the locate ticket, a locate service provider or afacility owner (hereafter referred to as a “ticket recipient”) maydispatch a locate technician to the work site of planned excavation todetermine a presence or absence of one or more underground facilities inthe dig area to be excavated or otherwise disturbed. A typical firststep for the locate technician includes utilizing an undergroundfacility “locate device,” which is an instrument or set of instruments(also referred to commonly as a “locate set”) for detecting facilitiesthat are concealed in some manner, such as cables and pipes that arelocated underground. The locate device is employed by the technician toverify the presence or absence of underground facilities indicated inthe locate request ticket as potentially present in the dig area (e.g.,via the facility owner member codes listed in the ticket). This processis often referred to as a “locate operation.”

In one example of a locate operation, an underground facility locatedevice is used to detect electromagnetic fields that are generated by anapplied signal provided along a length of a target facility to beidentified. In this example, a locate device may include both a signaltransmitter to provide the applied signal (e.g., which is coupled by thelocate technician to a tracer wire disposed along a length of afacility), and a signal receiver which is generally a hand-heldapparatus carried by the locate technician as the technician walksaround the dig area to search for underground facilities. Thetransmitter is connected via a connection point to a target object (inthis example, underground facility) located in the ground, and generatesthe applied signal coupled to the underground facility via theconnection point (e.g., to a tracer wire along the facility), resultingin the generation of a magnetic field. The magnetic field in turn isdetected by the locate receiver, which itself may include one or moredetection antenna. The locate receiver indicates a presence of afacility when it detects electromagnetic fields arising from the appliedsignal. Conversely, the absence of a signal detected by the locatereceiver generally indicates the absence of the target facility.

In yet another example, a locate device employed for a locate operationmay include a single instrument, similar in some respects to aconventional metal detector. In particular, such an instrument mayinclude an oscillator to generate an alternating current that passesthrough a coil, which in turn produces a first magnetic field. If apiece of electrically conductive metal is in close proximity to the coil(e.g., if an underground facility having a metal component is below/nearthe coil of the instrument), eddy currents are induced in the metal andthe metal produces its own magnetic field, which in turn affects thefirst magnetic field. The instrument may include a second coil tomeasure changes to the first magnetic field, thereby facilitatingdetection of metallic objects.

In addition to the locate operation, the locate technician alsogenerally performs a “marking operation,” in which the technician marksthe presence (and in some cases the absence) of a given undergroundfacility in the dig area based on the various signals detected (or notdetected) during the locate operation. For this purpose, the locatetechnician conventionally utilizes a “marking device” to dispense amarking material on, for example, the ground, pavement, or other surfacealong a detected underground facility. Marking material may be anymaterial, substance, compound, and/or element, used or which may be usedseparately or in combination to mark, signify, and/or indicate. Examplesof marking materials may include, but are not limited to, paint, chalk,dye, and/or iron. Marking devices, such as paint marking wands and/orpaint marking wheels, provide a convenient method of dispensing markingmaterials onto surfaces, such as onto the surface of the ground orpavement.

In some environments, arrows, flags, darts, or other types of physicalmarks may be used to mark the presence or absence of an undergroundfacility in a dig area, in addition to or as an alternative to amaterial applied to the ground (such as paint, chalk, dye, tape) alongthe path of a detected utility. The marks resulting from any of a widevariety of materials and/or objects used to indicate a presence orabsence of underground facilities generally are referred to as “locatemarks.” Often, different color materials and/or physical objects may beused for locate marks, wherein different colors correspond to differentutility types. For example, the American Public Works Association (APWA)has established a standardized color-coding system for utilityidentification for use by public agencies, utilities, contractors andvarious groups involved in ground excavation (e.g., red=electric powerlines and cables; blue=potable water; orange=telecommunication lines;yellow=gas, oil, steam). In some cases, the technician also may provideone or more marks to indicate that no facility was found in the dig area(sometimes referred to as a “clear”).

As mentioned above, the foregoing activity of identifying and marking apresence or absence of one or more underground facilities generally isreferred to for completeness as a “locate and marking operation.”However, in light of common parlance adopted in the constructionindustry, and/or for the sake of brevity, one or both of the respectivelocate and marking functions may be referred to in some instances simplyas a “locate operation” or a “locate” (i.e., without making any specificreference to the marking function). Accordingly, it should beappreciated that any reference in the relevant arts to the task of alocate technician simply as a “locate operation” or a “locate” does notnecessarily exclude the marking portion of the overall process. At thesame time, in some contexts a locate operation is identified separatelyfrom a marking operation, wherein the former relates more specificallyto detection-related activities and the latter relates more specificallyto marking-related activities.

Inaccurate locating and/or marking of underground facilities can resultin physical damage to the facilities, property damage, and/or personalinjury during the excavation process that, in turn, can expose afacility owner or contractor to significant legal liability. Whenunderground facilities are damaged and/or when property damage orpersonal injury results from damaging an underground facility during anexcavation, the excavator may assert that the facility was notaccurately located and/or marked by a locate technician, while thelocate contractor who dispatched the technician may in turn assert thatthe facility was indeed properly located and marked. Proving whether theunderground facility was properly located and marked can be difficultafter the excavation (or after some damage, e.g., a gas explosion),because in many cases the physical locate marks (e.g., the markingmaterial or other physical marks used to mark the facility on thesurface of the dig area) will have been disturbed or destroyed duringthe excavation process (and/or damage resulting from excavation).

SUMMARY

As discussed above, in various field service operations, a number offield technicians typically are dispatched to perform field operationsat any given time, and over any given time period each technician may beassigned numerous work orders, or “tickets” specifying aspects of thefield operations to be performed. The volume of tickets per technicianmay be particularly high in the construction industry, especially inconnection with locate and marking operations. The inventors haverecognized and appreciated that implementing and performing meaningfuloversight and quality control activities in a timely fashion for severalfield technicians each performing several field operations in a giventime period may present challenges, and that failure to performmeaningful oversight and quality control activities may adversely affectcustomer satisfaction.

Additionally, the inventors have appreciated that the time, effort, andcost that is associated with re-performing work in the field, or withcorrecting and/or improving poorly performed field calls, may beunacceptable. Consequently, the inventors have realized that a needexists for methods of providing oversight and quality control in fieldservice operations in order to improve customer satisfaction, toidentify and reduce the number of poorly performed tickets, and toimprove visibility into distributed workforce operations.

In view of the foregoing, various inventive embodiments disclosed hereinrelate generally to methods, apparatus and systems for computer-aideddetermination of quality assessment for locate and marking operations.In some embodiments, a quality assessment decision is solely under thediscretion of a human reviewer, albeit facilitated in some respects bycomputer-aided display of information, and electronic record-keeping andcommunication functions associated with the quality assessmentresult(s). In other embodiments, information related to a locate andmarking operation is electronically analyzed such that a qualityassessment is not based solely on human discretion, but rather based atleast in part on some predetermined criteria and/or metrics thatfacilitate an automated determination of quality assessment.

More specifically, in some embodiments, methods, apparatus and systemsaccording to the present disclosure relate to at least partiallyautomating oversight and quality assessment in underground facilitylocate applications and/or other field service operations. For example,in some embodiments, an automated quality assessment system may receiveinformation related to a locate and marking operation from one or moresources of electronic data (also referred to herein as “fieldinformation” or “field data”), analyze the contents of the receivedelectronic data, and automatically assess the quality of the operationbased at least in part on the analysis. In other embodiments, automatedanalysis of at least some of the received electronic data relating tothe locate and marking operation facilitates further analysis and/orquality assessment by a human, in which the quality assessment is notbased solely on the discretion of the human, but is significantlyinformed in some manner by automated analysis of data.

In some exemplary implementations in which a quality of a locate andmarking operation is assessed via an at least partially automatedprocess, some or all of the available field information (e.g., which insome instances is derived from data contained in an electronic record ofthe locate and marking operation) is compared to “reference information”or “reference data” (which in some instances is derived from datacontained in a “reference” electronic record). Examples of types ofreference information/data used in a quality assessment processaccording to various embodiments discussed herein may include, but arenot limited to: 1) information/data derived from or relating to one ormore facilities maps that illustrate the presumed locations ofunderground facilities purportedly present in a geographic areaproximate to or surrounding and subsuming the work site; 2)information/data derived from or relating to one or more previous locateand marking operations at or near the work site (referred to herein as“historical tickets” or “historical data”); and/or 3) information/datarelating to one or more environmental landmarks present in a geographicarea proximate to or surrounding and subsuming the dig area (e.g., thework site and its environs), or within the dig area itself (referred toherein as “landmark information,” which may be available, for example,from facilities maps, historical tickets, and/or field data collected ator around the time of the locate and marking operation being assessed).

In other aspects, the quality assessment of the locate and/or markingoperation may be performed, in whole or in part, by one or more analysiscomponents (e.g., one or more processors executing instructions)separate and/or remote from the locate and/or marking device used inconnection with the locate and/or marking operation. Alternatively, theassessment may be performed, in whole or in part, by one or moreanalysis components incorporated within or otherwise coupled to a locatedevice, a marking device, and/or a combined locate and marking device.Depending on the nature of the assessment, it may be performedsubstantially in real time with respect to the generation of fieldinformation/data used in connection with the assessment (e.g., one ormore of locate information, marking information and landmark informationcontained in electronic records of a locate and marking operation and/oran electronic manifest of same), otherwise during a locate and/ormarking operation, or after completion of a locate and/or markingoperation.

In some embodiments described herein, a notification may be generatedbased on the quality assessment performed. The notification may provideone or more indications of the quality of the locate and markingoperation as a whole, or of some aspect thereof. For example, thenotification may provide an indication of a degree of correspondence ordiscrepancy between field data contained in the electronic record of thelocate and marking operation and reference data contained in thereference electronic record to which it is compared. Likewise, thenotification may provide an indication that the locate and markingoperation is or is not approved based on the comparison of the fielddata to the reference data. The notification may be transmittedelectronically or otherwise conveyed, for example, to one or moreparties associated with one or more underground facilities within thedig area or in a geographic area proximate to or surrounding andsubsuming the work site, one or more parties associated with theperformance or oversight of the locate and marking operation, and/or oneor more parties associated with excavation of the dig area, for example.

In exemplary embodiments in which the reference information comprisesdata relating to one or more environmental landmarks (“landmarkinformation,” e.g., geographic information and/or landmark category/typeinformation relating to one or more environmental landmarks), a varietyof assessments are possible.

For example, in a first embodiment relating to environmental landmarks,field information including geographic information, facility typeinformation, and/or other information relating to an undergroundfacility identified and/or marked during a locate and/or markingoperation may be compared to reference information comprising landmarkinformation to determine whether or not the location and/or type of oneor more facilities identified and/or marked during the locate and/ormarking operation are expected in view of the location and/or type ofone or more environmental landmarks. Such a comparison may includeidentifying at least one correspondence or discrepancy between thecompared data based on or more criteria. The landmark information may bederived, for example, from one or more facilities maps, one or morehistorical tickets, or may be collected together with (e.g., essentiallyconcurrently with) various information relating to the locate and/ormarking operation (the locate and/or marking operation to be assessedmay include acquisition of landmark information relating to one or moreenvironmental landmarks, and this landmark information may be used forthe assessment).

In a second exemplary embodiment relating to environmental landmarks,“new” landmark information collected as part of a current/recent locateand/or marking operation (e.g., via a suitably configured markingdevice, locate device, or combined locate and marking device, and/orindicated on an electronic manifest for the locate and/or markingoperation) may be compared to “reference” landmark information. Thereference landmark information may be derived, for example, from one ormore facilities maps or one or more historical tickets (which themselvesmay include previous electronic manifests), and such a comparison mayserve as a basis for assessment. In one aspect of this embodiment, both“new” landmark information and other information relating to the locateand/or marking operation (e.g., geographic information, facility typeinformation, etc.) may be compared to the reference landmark informationand other facility-related information derived from one or morefacilities maps or one or more historical tickets, such that anassessment is based both on a comparison of environmental landmarks andfacilities.

In yet other embodiments, a first electronic representation of fieldinformation relating to a locate and marking operation (e.g., data in anelectronic record, an electronic manifest, etc.), as well as a secondelectronic representation of reference information (e.g., data in areference electronic record from any of a variety of sources) to whichthe first electronic representation is compared, may be visuallyrendered (e.g., via a computer-generated visual representation in adisplay field) such that the electronic representations are overlaid toprovide a visual aid to an automated assessment process.

In sum, one embodiment of the present invention is directed to a method,performed in a computer comprising at least one hardware processor, atleast one tangible storage medium, and at least one input/output (I/O)interface, for evaluating a quality of a locate and/or marking operationto identify a presence or an absence of at least one undergroundfacility at a work site. The method comprises: A) comparing firstinformation relating to the locate and/or marking operation to secondinformation relating to a presence or an absence of one or morereference environmental landmarks; B) automatically generating, based onA), at least one indication of a quality assessment of the locate and/ormarking operation; and C) electronically storing on the at least onetangible storage medium, and/or electronically transmitting via the atleast one I/O interface, the at least one indication of the qualityassessment so as to provide an electronic record of the qualityassessment.

Another embodiment is directed to an apparatus for evaluating a qualityof a locate and/or marking operation to identify a presence or anabsence of at least one underground facility at a work site. Theapparatus comprises: at least one input/output (I/O) interface; at leastone memory storing processor-executable instructions; and a processorcoupled to the memory and the at least one I/O interface. Upon executionof the processor-executable instructions by the processor, theprocessor: A) compares first information relating to the locate and/ormarking operation to second information relating to a presence or anabsence of one or more reference environmental landmarks; B)automatically generates, based on A), at least one indication of aquality assessment of the locate and/or marking operation; and C)controls the at least one memory so as to electronically store, and/orcontrols the at least one I/O interface so as to electronicallytransmit, the at least one indication of the quality assessment so as toprovide an electronic record of the quality assessment.

Another embodiment is directed to at least one computer-readable storagemedium encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor in acomputer comprising at least one input/output (I/O) interface, perform amethod for evaluating a quality of a locate and/or marking operation toidentify a presence or an absence of at least one underground facilitywithin a work site. The method comprise: A) comparing first informationrelating to the locate and/or marking operation to second informationrelating to a presence or an absence of one or more referenceenvironmental landmarks; B) automatically generating, based on A), atleast one indication of a quality assessment of the locate and markingoperation; and C) electronically storing on the at least onecomputer-readable storage medium, and/or electronically transmitting viathe at least one I/O interface, the at least one indication of thequality assessment so as to provide an electronic record of the qualityassessment.

For purposes of the present disclosure, the term “dig area” refers to aspecified area of a work site within which there is a plan to disturbthe ground (e.g., excavate, dig holes and/or trenches, bore, etc.), andbeyond which there is no plan to excavate in the immediate surroundings.Thus, the metes and bounds of a dig area are intended to providespecificity as to where some disturbance to the ground is planned at agiven work site. It should be appreciated that a given work site mayinclude multiple dig areas.

The term “facility” refers to one or more lines, cables, fibers,conduits, transmitters, receivers, or other physical objects orstructures capable of or used for carrying, transmitting, receiving,storing, and providing utilities, energy, data, substances, and/orservices, and/or any combination thereof. The term “undergroundfacility” means any facility beneath the surface of the ground. Examplesof facilities include, but are not limited to, oil, gas, water, sewer,power, telephone, data transmission, cable television (TV), and/orinternet services.

The term “locate device” refers to any apparatus and/or device, usedalone or in combination with any other device, for detecting and/orinferring the presence or absence of any facility, including withoutlimitation, any underground facility. In various examples, a locatedevice often includes both a locate transmitter and a locate receiver(which in some instances may also be referred to collectively as a“locate instrument set,” or simply “locate set”).

The term “marking device” refers to any apparatus, mechanism, or otherdevice that employs a marking dispenser for causing a marking materialand/or marking object to be dispensed, or any apparatus, mechanism, orother device for electronically indicating (e.g., logging in memory) alocation, such as a location of an underground facility. Additionally,the term “marking dispenser” refers to any apparatus, mechanism, orother device for dispensing and/or otherwise using, separately or incombination, a marking material and/or a marking object. An example of amarking dispenser may include, but is not limited to, a pressurized canof marking paint. The term “marking material” means any material,substance, compound, and/or element, used or which may be usedseparately or in combination to mark, signify, and/or indicate. Examplesof marking materials may include, but are not limited to, paint, chalk,dye, and/or iron. The term “marking object” means any object and/orobjects used or which may be used separately or in combination to mark,signify, and/or indicate. Examples of marking objects may include, butare not limited to, a flag, a dart, and arrow, and/or an RFID markingball. It is contemplated that marking material may include markingobjects. It is further contemplated that the terms “marking materials”or “marking objects” may be used interchangeably in accordance with thepresent disclosure.

The term “locate mark” means any mark, sign, and/or object employed toindicate the presence or absence of any underground facility. Examplesof locate marks may include, but are not limited to, marks made withmarking materials, marking objects, global positioning or otherinformation, and/or any other means. Locate marks may be represented inany form including, without limitation, physical, visible, electronic,and/or any combination thereof.

The terms “actuate” or “trigger” (verb form) are used interchangeably torefer to starting or causing any device, program, system, and/or anycombination thereof to work, operate, and/or function in response tosome type of signal or stimulus. Examples of actuation signals orstimuli may include, but are not limited to, any local or remote,physical, audible, inaudible, visual, non-visual, electronic,mechanical, electromechanical, biomechanical, biosensing or othersignal, instruction, or event. The terms “actuator” or “trigger” (nounform) are used interchangeably to refer to any method or device used togenerate one or more signals or stimuli to cause or causing actuation.Examples of an actuator/trigger may include, but are not limited to, anyform or combination of a lever, switch, program, processor, screen,microphone for capturing audible commands, and/or other device ormethod. An actuator/trigger may also include, but is not limited to, adevice, software, or program that responds to any movement and/orcondition of a user, such as, but not limited to, eye movement, brainactivity, heart rate, other data, and/or the like, and generates one ormore signals or stimuli in response thereto. In the case of a markingdevice or other marking mechanism (e.g., to physically or electronicallymark a facility or other feature), actuation may cause marking materialto be dispensed, as well as various data relating to the markingoperation (e.g., geographic location, time stamps, characteristics ofmaterial dispensed, etc.) to be logged in an electronic file stored inmemory. In the case of a locate device or other locate mechanism (e.g.,to physically locate a facility or other feature), actuation may cause adetected signal strength, signal frequency, depth, or other informationrelating to the locate operation to be logged in an electronic filestored in memory.

The terms “locate and marking operation,” “locate operation,” and“locate” generally are used interchangeably and refer to any activity todetect, infer, and/or mark the presence or absence of an undergroundfacility. In some contexts, the term “locate operation” is used to morespecifically refer to detection of one or more underground facilities,and the term “marking operation” is used to more specifically refer tousing a marking material and/or one or more marking objects to mark apresence or an absence of one or more underground facilities. The term“locate technician” refers to an individual performing a locateoperation. A locate and marking operation often is specified inconnection with a dig area, at least a portion of which may be excavatedor otherwise disturbed during excavation activities.

The term “user” refers to an individual utilizing a locate device and/ora marking device and may include, but is not limited to, land surveyors,locate technicians, and support personnel.

The terms “locate request” and “excavation notice” are usedinterchangeably to refer to any communication to request a locate andmarking operation. The term “locate request ticket” (or simply “ticket”)refers to any communication or instruction to perform a locateoperation. A ticket might specify, for example, the address ordescription of a dig area to be marked, the day and/or time that the digarea is to be marked, and/or whether the user is to mark the excavationarea for certain gas, water, sewer, power, telephone, cable television,and/or some other underground facility. The term “historical ticket”refers to past tickets that have been completed.

The term “complex event processing (CEP)” refers to a software and/orhardware-implemented (e.g., facilitated by a computer system,distributed computer system, computational analysis coded in software,and/or a combination thereof) technique relating to recognizing one ormore events, patterns of events, or the absence of an event or patternof events, within one or more input streams of information andperforming one or more actions and/or computations in response to suchrecognition, in accordance with specified rules, criteria, algorithms,or logic. CEP generally involves detection of relationships betweeninformation contained in input streams (which input streams may includeindications of previously recognized events), such as causality,membership, timing, event-driven processes, detection of complexpatterns of one or more events, event streams processing, eventcorrelation and abstraction, and/or event hierarchies. CEP maycomplement and contribute to technologies such as, but not limited to,service oriented architecture (SOA), event driven architecture (EDA),and/or business process management (BPM). CEP allows the informationcontained in the events flowing through all of the layers of a servicebusiness, an enterprise information technology infrastructure and/ormanagement operation to be discovered, analyzed, and understood in termsof its impact on management goals and business processes, and acted uponin real time or as a management process.

The following U.S. published applications are hereby incorporated hereinby reference:

-   U.S. publication no. 2008-0228294-A1, published Sep. 18, 2008, filed    Mar. 13, 2007, and entitled “Marking System and Method With Location    and/or Time Tracking;”-   U.S. publication no. 2008-0245299-A1, published Oct. 9, 2008, filed    Apr. 4, 2007, and entitled “Marking System and Method;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0013928-A1, published Jan. 15, 2009, filed    Sep. 24, 2008, and entitled “Marking System and Method;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0202101-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Feb. 12, 2008, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground    Facility Locate Marks;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0202110-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Sep. 11, 2008, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground    Facility Locate Marks;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0201311-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Jan. 30, 2009, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground    Facility Locate Marks;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0202111-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Jan. 30, 2009, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground    Facility Locate Marks;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0204625-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Feb. 5, 2009, and entitled “Electronic Manifest of Underground    Facility Locate Operation;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0204466-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Sep. 4, 2008, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method of    Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0207019-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed    Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method    of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0210284-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed    Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method    of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0210297-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed    Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method    of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0210298-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed    Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method    of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0210285-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed    Apr. 30, 2009, and entitled “Ticket Approval System For and Method    of Performing Quality Control In Field Service Applications;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0204238-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Feb. 2, 2009, and entitled “Electronically Controlled Marking    Apparatus and Methods;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0208642-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed    Feb. 2, 2009, and entitled “Marking Apparatus and Methods For    Creating an Electronic Record of Marking Operations;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0210098-A1, published Aug. 20, 2009, filed    Feb. 2, 2009, and entitled “Marking Apparatus and Methods For    Creating an Electronic Record of Marking Apparatus Operations;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0201178-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Feb. 2, 2009, and entitled “Methods For Evaluating Operation of    Marking Apparatus;”-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0202112-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Feb. 11, 2009, and entitled “Searchable Electronic Records of    Underground Facility Locate Marking Operations;” and-   U.S. publication no. 2009-0204614-A1, published Aug. 13, 2009, filed    Feb. 11, 2009, and entitled “Searchable Electronic Records of    Underground Facility Locate Marking Operations.”

It should be appreciated that all combinations of the foregoing conceptsand additional concepts discussed in greater detail below (provided suchconcepts are not mutually inconsistent) are contemplated as being partof the inventive subject matter disclosed herein. In particular, allcombinations of claimed subject matter appearing at the end of thisdisclosure are contemplated as being part of the inventive subjectmatter disclosed herein. It should also be appreciated that terminologyexplicitly employed herein that also may appear in any disclosureincorporated by reference should be accorded a meaning most consistentwith the particular concepts disclosed herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead generallybeing placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.

FIG. 1 shows an example in which a locate and marking operation isinitiated as a result of an excavator providing an excavation notice toa one-call center.

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an automated quality assessmentsystem for assessing the quality of a field service operation, inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 illustrates a flow diagram of an example of a process forautomatically assessing the quality of a field service operation, inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 illustrates a functional block diagram of an example of anautomated quality assessment application for automatically performingquality control in underground facility locate applications, inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 illustrates an electronic manifest comprising both image data andnon-image data relating to a locate and/or marking operation, inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 6 illustrates a data set that may be associated with an electronicmanifest and from information may be obtained for a quality assessment,in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 is an example of a facilities map from which information relatingto environmental landmarks may be obtained;

FIG. 8 illustrates a flow diagram of an example of a method ofautomatically performing quality control in underground facility locateapplications using the automated quality assessment system, inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIGS. 9A and 9B illustrate electronic visual renderings of locate and/ormarking operations to facilitate an explanation of exemplary conceptsrelating to assessment based on landmark information, in accordance withsome embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 10 illustrates a flow diagram of an example of a process fordetermining the distance between two sets of geo-location points, inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 11A is an example of a computer-aided visual rendering illustratingan overlay of field data corresponding to a locate and/or markingoperation and reference data, in accordance with some embodiments of thepresent disclosure; and

FIG. 11B is another example of computer-aided visual renderingillustrating an overlay of filed data corresponding to a differentlocate and/or marking operation and reference data, in accordance withsome embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Following below are more detailed descriptions of various conceptsrelated to, and embodiments of, inventive systems, methods and apparatusfor analyzing locate and marking operations with respect toenvironmental landmarks. It should be appreciated that various conceptsintroduced above and discussed in greater detail below may beimplemented in any of numerous ways, as the disclosed concepts are notlimited to any particular manner of implementation. Examples of specificimplementations and applications are provided primarily for illustrativepurposes.

I. Overview

Various inventive embodiments disclosed herein relate to methods,apparatus and systems for performing oversight and quality control infield service operations, such as locate and marking operations. Ingeneral, approvers and/or managers may review the quality of theselocate and marking operations in real time and/or within a certainamount of time (e.g., within one day) of completion of the operation.The review of a locate and marking operation by a human (e.g., anapprover or manager) and the determination of a quality assessment forthe operation based solely on the discretion of the human is referred toherein as a “manual quality assessment.”

Some embodiments described herein are related to methods, apparatus andsystems for at least partially automating oversight and qualityassessment in underground facility locate operations and/or other fieldservice operations. For example, in some embodiments, an automatedquality assessment system may receive “field information” (also referredto as “field data”) related to a locate and marking operation from oneor more sources of electronic data (e.g., electronic records of locateand marking operations generated by various locate equipment, anelectronic manifest for same, ticket information, service-relatedinformation, etc.), electronically analyze the contents of the fieldinformation/data by comparing it to “reference information” (alsoreferred to as “reference data”) relating to one or more environmentallandmarks (also referred to herein as “landmark information”), andautomatically assess the quality of the operation based at least in parton the analysis (e.g., according to predetermined criteria on which thecomparison is based and metrics for the criteria).

In other embodiments, automated analysis of field information/datafacilitates further analysis and/or quality assessment by a human, inwhich the quality assessment is not based solely on the discretion ofthe human, but is significantly informed in some manner by automatedanalysis of data. As contrasted with the above-discussed “manual qualityassessment” of a locate and marking operation by a human, this type ofassessment (e.g., based on some degree of electronic analysis of datarelating to a locate and/or marking operation) is referred to herein as“automated quality assessment.”

In some embodiments, methods, apparatus and systems according to thepresent invention may automatically output one or more of a variety ofindications of the assessed quality of a locate operation. In oneaspect, the indication of the assessed quality of a locate operation maybe a categorized into one or more of a plurality of quality categories.Any suitable number and type of categories may be used, as the inventionis not limited in this respect. For example, in some embodiments, alocate operation may be automatically categorized as either, (a)approved—no further action needed; (b) satisfactory, but the locatetechnician needs coaching or training; (c) unsatisfactory—the ticketneeds quality control (QC) action; or (d) real-time prompt—an aspect ofthe assessment may be suitable for prompting the locate technician inreal time with respect to, for example, performing an immediateverification and/or corrective action. In other implementations, ascore, grade, or other graduated indication (e.g., based on some maximumrange or scale) may be provided as an indication of quality assessmentin connection with a locate and marking operation.

II. Automated Quality Assessment

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an automated quality assessment system1800. Automated quality assessment system 1800 may be, for example, acomputer system having at least one hardware processor 1803, a memory1805 that comprises at least one tangible storage medium (e.g., RAM,ROM, Flash memory, one or more magnetic storage devices, one or moreoptical storage devices, or any other type of tangible storage medium),and at least one communications interface 1801. Memory 1805 may storecomputer-readable (processor-executable) instructions of an automatedquality assessment application 1200, which may be executed by processor1803. When executed by processor 1803, automated quality assessmentapplication 1200 may obtain information associated with a field serviceoperation (e.g., a locate and marking operation) from data sources 1216via communication interface 1801, analyze the data to assess the qualityof the field service operation and may output (e.g., via communicationinterface 1801) one or more indications of the quality assessment of thefield service operation. In some implementations, one or moreindications of the quality assessment may be stored in the memory and/ortransmitted via the communication interface to provide an electronicrecord of the quality assessment. The communication interface 1801 maybe coupled to a wired or wireless network, bus, or other communicationmeans and may therefore allow the system 1800 to transmit communicationsto and/or receive communications from other devices.

The computer system of FIG. 2 serving as an automated quality assessmentsystem 1800 may further comprise one or more user interfaces 1802, whichmay include one or more display units (not shown) The display unit(s)may be provided, for example, to allow a user to view variousinformation in connection with execution of the instructions and/or theindication(s) of quality assessment. In general, the user interfaceallows a user to communicate with the processor 1803, make manualadjustments, make selections, enter data or various other information,receive information, and/or interact in any of a variety of manners withthe processor during execution of the instructions.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of process 1900 that may be performed by qualityassessment application 1200 to automatically assess the quality of afield service operation, such as, for example, a locate and markingoperation. Process 1900 begins at act 1901, where the automated qualityassessment application receives electronic information associated with afield service operation. The process next continues to act 1903, wherethe automated quality assessment application analyzes at least some ofthe received information to automatically generate a quality assessmentof the field service operation. The process next continues to act 1905,where the automated quality assessment application outputs an indicationof the quality of the field service operation that is based on theassessment generated in the act 1903.

Referring to FIG. 4, a more detailed block diagram of automated qualityassessment application 1200 and data sources 1216 is presented.Automated quality assessment application 1200 may be, for example, arules-based computer software application that includes, for example, aninformation processing component 1210, quality assessment outcomes 1212(e.g., one or more indications of the quality assessment), and afeedback component 1214. Automated quality assessment application 1200may be fed by any number of data sources 1216, which may include varioustypes of electronic information and/or records of data associated withlocate and/or marking operations performed in the field (e.g., both“field information/data” and “reference information/data”).

For example, the automated quality assessment application 1200 of thepresent disclosure may automatically review a variety of fieldinformation, which may include “closed” or completed tickets (i.e.,tickets pursuant to which a locate and/or marking operation has beenperformed) and their associated manifests (which may or may not includedigital images relating to the locate operation), and/or any informationrelating thereto, in essentially real time and/or within a specifiedamount of time, such as within one day, from the ticket being closed. Insome embodiments discussed in further detail below, closed tickets maybe reviewed by automatically interrogating received data associated witha locate and marking operation against various metrics, such asreference information/data derived from or relating to one or moreenvironmental landmarks.

In some embodiments, information processing component 1210 of automatedquality assessment application 1200 may be, for example, a rules-basedsoftware component for analyzing the contents of any information that isavailable in data sources 1216 and then automatically performing anassessment with respect to the quality of a locate operation that isperformed in the field. For each locate and marking operation that isassessed, information processing component 1210 may automaticallygenerate a quality assessment outcome 1212 that corresponds to theresults of the automatic quality assessment.

Any suitable type of outcome may be generated. For example, in someembodiments, the outcome generated may be a categorization of the locateoperation into one of a plurality of quality categories (also referredto herein as “scoring” categories or “grading” categories). For example,based on the automatic quality assessment, a locate operation may becategorized as:

-   -   APPROVED—the locate operation is approved, no further action        needed;    -   SATISFACTORY—the locate operation is approved, but the locate        technician needs coaching or training;    -   UNSATISFACTORY—the locate operation is not approved, the ticket        needs QC action; or    -   PROMPT—an aspect of the locate operation assessment may be        suitable for transmitting a real-time prompt to the locate        technician with respect to, for example, performing a        substantially immediate verification and/or corrective action.

Other examples of possible outcomes generated by automated ticketapplication 1200 include, but are not limited to, a numerical score(e.g., a score of 0-100%), a grade (e.g., a grade of A-F), or othergraduated indicator, based on some range, scale and/or resolution(granularity), that is indicative of the quality of the assessed locateoperation.

Feedback component 1214 of automated quality assessment application 1200generates the real-time prompts. For example, once the nature of thereal-time prompt is determined, feedback component 1214 queries theticket information in order to ensure that the prompt is directed to theproper originating locate technician. Additional details of theoperation of automated quality assessment application 1200 are describedwith reference to the method of FIG. 6.

III. Exemplary Data Sources for Information Relating to EnvironmentalLandmarks

Examples of data sources 1216 that may be processed by informationprocessing component 1210 of automated quality assessment application100 may include, but are not limited to, one or more tickets 1220, avirtual white lines (VWL) application 1230, a ticket assessmentapplication 1240, locating equipment data 1250, an electronic manifest(EM) application 1260, one or more facilities maps 1280, an archive ofhistorical tickets 1290, and any other electronic information and/orrecords 1295. In implementation, the various data sources 1216 may besupplied by multiple entities (not shown) and accessible to automatedquality assessment application 1200 via, for example, a networkedcomputing system for supporting locate operations, an example of whichis described with reference to FIGS. 14 and 15.

In various embodiments of automated quality assessment based oninformation/data derived from the data sources 1216, it should beappreciated that some of this information/data may be treated as “fieldinformation/data” and some of this information/data may be treated as“reference information/data” to which the field information/data iscompared during the assessment process. Additionally, it should beappreciated that some of the information/data available from the datasources 1216 may be used to “pre-process” or filter one or both of thefield information/data and the reference information/data prior tocomparison for some types of assessments.

A. Tickets

Tickets 1220 of data sources 1216 are locate request tickets that may besubmitted by excavators and processed by one-call centers. Tickets 1220may include textual ticket information 1222 that comprises instructionswith respect to performing a locate operation, such as, but not limitedto, a ticket and/or work order number, date information, geographiclocation information (e.g., address information), excavationinformation, excavator information, site information (e.g., adescription of the dig area, which may include a description of one ormore environmental landmarks in or near the dig area/work site), locateoperations instructions information, caller information, remarksinformation, task information, and any combinations thereof.

Historical tickets 1290 of data sources 1216 may include any records ofprior locate and/or marking operations performed pursuant to previouslocate request tickets. These historical records may relate in someinstances, but not necessarily, to locate and/or marking operationsperformed in the past for the same work site/dig area specified in thepresent ticket 1220 subject to quality assessment. In the process ofperforming the automatic quality assessment of a present ticket 1220,information processing component 1210 may aggregate the information thatis contained in one or more historical tickets 1290 (which in some casesmay relate to the same work site/dig area) in order to determine thefacilities that have been located and/or marked during past locateoperations at that site, and/or the presence of one or moreenvironmental landmarks. Some of the information types discussed infurther detail below may form part of a historical ticket and may bederived from records associated with such tickets for purposes of anassessment. For example, records associated with historical tickets mayinclude digital images having one or more of dig area indicators,electronic locate marks and symbols or icons for environmental landmarksoverlaid thereon; additionally, or alternatively, such records mayinclude a variety of data provided by one or more pieces of locatingequipment used to perform the locate and/or marking operation (seesections B, C, and D below).

B. Dig Area Indicators and Associated Information

VWL application 1230 of data sources 1216 is a computer softwareapplication that provides an electronic drawing tool that may be used byexcavators for electronically marking up, for example, a digital aerialimage of the dig area. In this manner, instead of (or in addition to)physically visiting the site of the dig area and marking white lines onthe ground at that site, an excavator may electronically draw markings(e.g., white lines) on an aerial image of the site, indicating wheredigging is planned. These marked up digital images may be saved as, forexample, VWL images 1232, which may include accompanied with metadatapertaining to various information in the images. One or more VWL images1232 in turn may be associated with, for example, tickets 1220 andtransmitted to locate companies.

VWL application 1230 may be implemented, for example, as described inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/366,853 filed Feb. 6, 2009, entitled“Virtual white lines for delimiting planned excavation sites;” U.S.patent application Ser. No. 12/475,905 filed Jun. 1, 2009, entitled“Virtual white lines for delimiting planned excavation sites of stagedexcavation projects;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/422,364 filedApr. 13, 2009, entitled “Virtual white lines (VWL) application forindicating a planned excavation or locate path.” Each of these patentapplications is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

In one example, the dig area indicators in a VWL image may includetwo-dimensional (2D) drawing shapes, shades, points, symbols,coordinates, data sets, or other indicators to indicate on a digitalimage the dig area in which excavation is to occur. To generate theelectronic image having dig area indicators, an image (e.g., an aerialimage) of the work site may be sent to an excavator via a network, theexcavator may use a computing device executing the VWL application 1230to create a VWL image by marking up the image to include one or more digarea indicators precisely delimiting one or more dig areas within thework site and, in response, the marked-up VWL image may be received fromthe excavator via the network.

As noted above, a VWL image 1232 may include metadata corresponding toany markings or content in the image; in particular, geographicinformation including geographic coordinates (e.g., latitude andlongitude values) for any dig area indicators marked on the image mayaccompany or be included in an image file as metadata, and thesegeographic coordinates may be employed in some manner as part of aquality assessment process. For example, as discussed further below, inone embodiment geographic information derived from a virtual white lines(VWL) application 1230 (e.g., geographic coordinates associated with oneor more dig area indicators contained in a VLW image 1232) may be usedby automated quality assessment application 1200 to filter or limit thecontents of either field data or reference data prior toanalysis/comparison.

In particular, in one exemplary implementation, geographic coordinatesassociated with a dig area indicator may be used to select contents thatrelates only to a geographic area including the geographic coordinatesfor the dig area indicator, or contents that falls within apredetermined radius of the geographic coordinates for the dig areaindicator or a polygon-shaped buffer zone around the geographiccoordinates for the dig area indicator. In yet another example,geographic coordinates associated with a dig area indicator may be usedto filter out some contents that does not relate to a specificallydelimited dig area within a work site as defined by the VWL application(e.g., first geographic information or another portion of informationmay be selected from the field data, and/or second geographicinformation or another portion of information may be selected from thereference data, that relates only to a geographic area delimited by theVWL geographic information). Accordingly, it should be appreciated thatin some embodiments, the dig area indicator coordinates may identify aplurality of points along a perimeter of the delimited dig area, andthese coordinates may be used to select specific geographic information(e.g., filter out geographic information outside of the delimited digarea). In other embodiments, the dig area indicator coordinates mayidentify a single point, in which case the coordinates may be used toselect particular information based at least in part on the coordinatesfor the single point.

C. Locating Equipment Data

With respect to locating equipment data 1250, as noted above, a locatetechnician may use locating equipment, such as a locate instrument set(including a locate receiver device), a marking device, or a combinedlocate and marking device, so as to perform a locate and markingoperation. Locating equipment data 1250 of data sources 1216 may be anyinformation that is collected and/or generated (e.g., one or moreelectronic records) by any type of locating equipment equipped withcomponents that are capable of collecting electronic information and/orcreating electronic records about locate and marking operations that areperformed in the field. In some examples, locating equipment data 1250is constituted by “marking information” or marking device data 1252 thatis associated generally with the marking functionality of a locate andmarking operation, and/or “locate information” or locate receiver data1254 that is associated generally with the locating/detectionfunctionality of a locate and marking operation. Locating equipment data1250 also may include “landmark information” that may be acquired bysuitably configured locating equipment (e.g., a marking device, a locatedevice, or a combined locate and marking device capable of operating ina “landmark mode”), which information may be acquired eitherindependently or as part of (e.g., during or proximate in time to) alocate and marking operation.

In one example, marking device data 1252 of locating equipment data 1250may be electronic information and/or one or more electronic records ofdata that is provided by electronic marking devices and/or markingsystems. Examples of electronic marking devices and/or marking systemsthat may provide marking device data 1252 may include, but are notlimited, to those described in reference to U.S. patent application Ser.No. 11/696,606, filed Apr. 4, 2007 and published Oct. 9, 2008, entitled“Marking system and method;” U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/685,602, filed Mar. 13, 2007 and published Sep. 18, 2008, entitled“Marking system and method;” U.S. Non-provisional application Ser. No.12/568,087, filed on September 28, entitled “Methods and Apparatus forGenerating an Electronic Record of Environmental Landmarks Based onMarking Device Actuations;” U.S. Non-provisional application Ser. No.12/539,497, filed on Aug. 11, 2009, entitled “Methods and Apparatus forGenerating an Electronic Record of a Marking Operation based on MarkingDevice Actuations;” U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No.61/102,151 filed Oct. 2, 2008, entitled “Data acquisition system for andmethods of analyzing locate activities based on marking deviceactuations;” and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/151,574filed Feb. 11, 2009, entitled “Marking device that has enhanced featuresfor underground facility locate applications.” Each of theseapplications is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Table 1 shows one example of a sample of marking device data 1252 oflocating equipment data 1250 that may be captured as the result of, forexample, an actuation of a marking device. In some exemplaryimplementations, an electronic record of a marking operation may includemultiple data entries as shown in the example of Table 1 for respectiveactuations of a marking device to dispense a marking material (e.g., insome cases there may be one set of data as shown in Table 1 for eachactuation). In this manner, each time a marker is dispensed (so as toindicate a presence or absence of a given underground facility), data iscollected relating to the geographic location of the dispensed marker(e.g., geo-location data). Additionally, data relating to acharacteristic of the dispensed marker (e.g., color and/or brand) isincluded in the data entries of the electronic record, as well as otherdata germane to the marking operation.

TABLE 1 Example marking device data 1252 of locating equipment data 1250Service provider ID 0482 Locate technician ID 4815 Marking Device ID7362 Timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:15.2 Geo-location dataN35°43.57518, W078°49.78314 (deg. and dec. min.) Marking material dataColor = Red, Brand = ABC Temperature data 73 degrees F. Humidity data30% Light data 4.3 volts Compass data 213 degrees Inclinometer data −40Accelerometer data 0.275 g Battery strength data 73%

Table 2 below shows another example of marking device data 1252 oflocating equipment data 1250 that may be captured as the result of, forexample, one or more actuations of a marking device. Specifically, Table2 illustrates multiple “actuation data sets” of an electronic record ofa marking operation as generated by a marking device, in which eachactuation data set includes information associated with multipleactuation event entries logged during a corresponding actuation anddispensing of a locate mark. Table 2 shows three actuation data sets ofan electronic record, corresponding to three actuations of the markingdevice (e.g., act-1, act-2, and act-3). As may be appreciated from theinformation shown in Table 2, multiple pieces of geo-location data arelogged for each actuation of a marking device (in addition to variousother information).

TABLE 2 Example actuation data set for act-1 act-1 Service provider ID0482 User ID 4815 Device ID 7362 T1 timestamp data 12-Jul-2008;09:35:15.2 T2 timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:16.1 Duration (Δt)00:00:00.9 T1 geo-location data 2650.9348,N,08003.5057,W 1^(st) intervallocation data 2650.9353,N,08003.5055,W 2^(nd) interval location data2650.9356,N,08003.5055,W . . . . . . Nth interval location data2650.9246,N,08003.5240,W T2 geo-location data 2650.9255,N,08003.5236,WProduct data Color = Red, Brand = ABC, Type/Batch = 224B-1 Locaterequest data Requestor: XYZ Construction Company, Requested serviceaddress: 222 Main St, Orlando, FL Example actuation data set for act-2act-2 Service provider ID 0482 User ID 4815 Device ID 7362 T1 timestampdata 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:17.5 T2 timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:18.7Duration (Δt) 00:00:01.2 T1 geo-location data 2650.9256,N,08003.5234,W1st interval location data 2650.9256,N,08003.5226,W 2^(nd) intervallocation data 2650.9256,N,08003.5217,W . . . . . . Nth interval locationdata 2650.9260,N,08003.5199,W T2 geo-location data2650.9266,N,08003.5196,W Product data Color = Red, Brand = ABC,Type/Batch = 224B-1 Locate request data Requestor: XYZ ConstructionCompany, Requested service address: 222 Main St, Orlando, FL Exampleactuation data set for act-3 act-3 Service provider ID 0482 User ID 4815Device ID 7362 T1 timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:18.7 T2 timestampdata 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:19.8 duration (Δt) 00:00:01.1 T1 geo-locationdata 2650.9273,N,08003.5193,W 1st interval location data2650.9281,N,08003.5190,W 2^(nd) interval location data2650.9288,N,08003.5188,W . . . . . . Nth interval location data2650.9321,N,08003.5177,W T2 geo-location data 2650.9325,N,08003.5176,WProduct data Color = Red, Brand = ABC, Type/Batch = 224B-1 Locaterequest data Requestor: XYZ Construction Company, Requested serviceaddress: 222 Main St, Orlando, FL

With regard to the marking material color information that may beincluded in marking device data 1252 as exemplified in Tables 1 and 2,Table 3 shows an example of the correlation of marking material color tothe type of facility to be marked.

TABLE 3 Correlation of color to facility type Marking material colorFacility Type White Proposed excavation Pink Temporary survey markingsRed Electric power lines, cables or conduits, and lighting cables YellowGas, oil, steam, petroleum, or other hazardous liquid or gaseousmaterials Orange Communications, cable TV, alarm or signal lines,cables, or conduits Blue Water, irrigation, and slurry lines PurpleReclaimed water, irrigation and slurry lines Green Sewers, storm sewerfacilities, or other drain lines Black Mark-out for errant lines

In another example, locate receiver data 1254 of locating equipment data1250 may be electronic information (e.g., one or more electronicrecords) of data that is provided by electronic locate receiver devicesand/or systems. Examples of a locate receiver device that may providelocate receiver data 1254 are described in U.S. Non-provisionalapplication Ser. No. 12/569,192, filed on Sep. 29, 2009, entitled“Methods, Apparatus, and Systems for Generating Electronic Records ofLocate and Marking Operations, and Combined Locate and Marking Apparatusfor Same;” U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/151,578,entitled “Locating equipment that has enhanced features for increasedautomation in underground facility locate applications;” and U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/102,122, filed on Oct. 2,2008, entitled “Combination Locate and Marking Device With a DataAcquisition System Installed Therein, and Associated Methods,” whichapplications are both hereby incorporated herein by reference in theirentirety.

Table 4 below shows an example of a sample of locate receiver data 1254of locating equipment data 1250 that may be captured, for example, atone or more times during operation/use of an appropriately configuredlocate receiver. Different models of locate receivers and transmittersare available from a variety of manufacturers and have differentfeatures; accordingly, it should be appreciated that the informationcontent and type provided in Table 4 is exemplary of possibleinformation relating to locate receivers on which a quality assessmentof a locate operation may be based, and that other types and values forinformation are possible. With respect to information potentiallyprovided by a given locate receiver as shown in Table 4 below, the“gain” is typically a measure of the degree of sensitivity of a locatereceiver antenna that is picking up a signal emanating from along anunderground facility (alternatively, “gain” may be viewed as a degree ofamplification being applied to a received signal). Gain may be expressedin terms of any scale (e.g., 0-100), as a numeric value or percentage.“Signal strength” refers to the strength of a received signal at a givengain value; signal strength similarly may be expressed in terms of anyscale, as a numeric value or percentage. Generally speaking, highersignal strengths at lower gains typically indicate more reliableinformation from a locate receiver, but this may not necessarily be thecase for all locate operations.

In some exemplary implementations, an electronic record of a locateoperation as obtained from a locate receiver may include multiple dataentries as shown in the example of Table 4. Each such entry may not onlyinclude information about various operating parameters of the locatereceiver (e.g., signal strength, gain), but may additionally includelocation information (geo-location data) associated with detectedfacilities, as well as various environmental data. The logging of agiven entry by a locate receiver may automatically result from one ormore conditions (e.g., signal strength exceeding a particular threshold)and/or respective data entries may be manually logged by a technicianusing the locate receiver (e.g., via a push button, touch screen,trigger actuation, or other interaction facilitated by a user interfaceof the locate receiver). In this manner, multiple pieces of data may becollected for an electronic record of a locate operation, includingmultiple pieces of geo-location data for a given underground facilitydetected via the locate receiver.

TABLE 4 Example locate receiver data 1254 of locating equipment data1250 Service provider ID 0482 Locate technician ID 4815 Locate Device ID7345 Timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:15.2 Geo-location dataN35°43.57518, W078°49.78314 (deg. and dec. min.) Locate mode Mode =PASSIVE Gain 35 (on a scale of 1-100) Sig. strength 85% (on a scale of0-100%) Signal frequency 60 Hz Facility depth 3.4 feet Temperature data73 degrees F. Humidity data 30% Light data 4.3 volts Compass data 213degrees Inclinometer data −40 Accelerometer data 0.275 g Batterystrength data 85%

In another example, both marking device data 1252 and locate receiverdata 1254 of locating equipment data 1250 may be electronic information(e.g., one or more electronic records) of data that is provided by acombined locate and marking device. An example of such a combined locateand marking device is described in U.S. Non-provisional application Ser.No. 12/569,192, filed on Sep. 29, 2009, entitled “Methods, Apparatus,and Systems for Generating Electronic Records of Locate and MarkingOperations, and Combined Locate and Marking Apparatus for Same,” andU.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/102,122, filed on Oct.2, 2008, entitled “Combination Locate and Marking Device With a DataAcquisition System Installed Therein, and Associated Methods,” whichapplications are both hereby incorporated herein by reference in theirentirety.

Table 5 below illustrates one non-limiting example of four actuationdata sets that may be collected in an electronic record generated by acombined locate and marking device, in which each data set corresponds,for example, to a separate actuation event to dispense marking material.It should be appreciated, however, that these are merely examples, andthat various alternative electronic records may be generated accordingto the aspects of the invention, for example reflecting different typesof information associated with operation of a combination locate andmarking device.

Each of the four records of Table 5 includes general information notlimited to either the locate receiver functionality or markingfunctionality of the combination device, such as an identification ofthe service provider (Service provided ID), an identification of theuser (User ID), an identification of the device (Device ID), andinformation about the requestor of the locate operation and therequested address (Locate request data). In addition, an entrydescribing the mode of data collection (e.g., Manual) for the device isalso collected, which may indicate that information is logged into therecord(s) upon actuation of the combined locate and marking device.Information about the actuation itself, such as the time of actuation(Timestamp data), actuation duration, and geographical location(geo-location data) at the start, during, and/or at and end of theactuation may also be included. The data sets also include informationrelating to the locate receiver functionality of the combination locateand marking device, including the receiver detection mode (i.e., PEAK inTable 5), the strength of a detected signal, and the frequency of thedetected signal. Information relating to a depth measurement (Facilitydepth) is also included, as is information about the marking material tobe dispensed by the combination locate and marking device. Again, itshould be appreciated that Table 5 is an illustration of one electronicrecord including multiple data sets that may be generated in associationwith operation of a combination locate and marking device, and thatother forms of electronic records are also possible.

TABLE 5 Electronic Record for Combination Locate and Marking DeviceRecord Service provider ID 0482 #1001 User ID 4815 Device ID 7362 Devicemode Mode = MANUAL Timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:15 Actuationduration 0.5 sec Start actuation location 2650.9348,N,08003.5057,W dataEnd actuation location 2650.9353,N,08003.5055,W data Locate mode Mode =PEAK Signal strength (% of 85% maximum) Signal frequency 1 kHz Facilitydepth 3.4 meters Marking material data Color = RED, Brand =ABC Locaterequest data Requestor = XYZ Construction Company, Requested serviceaddress = 222 Main St, Orlando, FL Electronic Record for CombinationLocate and Marking Device Record Service provider ID 0482 #1002 User ID4815 Device ID 7362 Device mode Mode = MANUAL Timestamp data12-Jul-2008; 09:35:18 Actuation duration 0.4 sec Start actuationlocation 2650.9256,N,08003.5234,W data End actuation location2650.9256,N,08003.5226,W data Locate mode Mode = PEAK Signal strength (%of 85% maximum) Signal frequency 1 kHz Facility depth 3.4 meters Markingmaterial data Color = RED, Brand = ABC Locate request data Requestor =XYZ Construction Company, Requested service address = 222 Main St,Orlando, FL Electronic Record for Combination Locate and Marking DeviceRecord Service provider ID 0482 #1003 User ID 4815 Device ID 7362 Devicemode Mode = MANUAL Timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:21 Trigger pullduration 0.5 sec Start actuation location 2650.9273,N,08003.5193,W dataEnd actuation location 2650.9281,N,08003.5190,W data Locate mode Mode =PEAK Signal strength (% of 85% maximum) Signal frequency 1 kHz Facilitydepth 3.4 meters Marking material data Color = RED, Brand = ABC Locaterequest data Requestor = XYZ Construction Company, Requested serviceaddress = 222 Main St, Orlando, FL Electronic Record for CombinationLocate and Marking Device Record Service provider ID 0482 #1004 User ID4815 Device ID 7362 Device mode Mode = MANUAL Timestamp data12-Jul-2008; 09:35:25 Actuation (actuation) 0.5 sec duration Startactuation location 2650.9321,N,08003.5177,W data End actuation location2650.9325,N,08003.5176,W data Locate mode Mode = PEAK Signal strength (%of 85% maximum) Signal frequency 1 kHz Facility depth 3.4 meters Markingmaterial data Color = RED, Brand = ABC Locate request data Requestor =XYZ Construction Company, Requested service address = 222 Main St,Orlando, FL

While the collection and logging of locate information and markinginformation to generate an electronic record is discussed in someaspects, for purposes of illustration, in terms of actuation data sets(i.e., a set of data that is associated and logged with a correspondingactuation of a locate device, marking device, or combined locate andmarking device), it should be appreciated that electronic records asdiscussed herein are not limited in this respect. More generally, anelectronic record of a locate and/or marking operation may be generatedin any of a variety of manners, have a variety of file formats and/ordata structures, and include any of a variety of locate informationand/or marking information (some of which may be germane to one or moreactuations of a device, some of which may be common to multipleactuations or the overall locate and/or marking operation in general,and some of which may not be related to specific actuations). Forexample, in some exemplary implementations electronic records may be a“flat files” including a succession of time stamped “event entries” ofvarious locate information and/or marking information (loggedautomatically as a result of one or more particular conditions, e.g.,exceeded thresholds for various signals, or manually as a result of useractuation of a device), or a differently formatted file (e.g., an ASCIIfile, an XML file) having a data structure that segregates or separatesin some manner the locate information and/or marking information intomultiple different fields.

It should also be appreciated that one or both of the marking devicedata 1252 and locate receiver data 1254 of locating equipment data 1250,received from any of the marking devices, locate devices, or combinedlocate and marking devices referenced above, may include landmarkinformation (in addition to, or alternatively to, locate information andmarking information). Landmark information may include any informationrelating to one or more environmental landmarks of interest (e.g., inand around the work site/dig area and/or generally in the vicinity ofthe locate and marking operation). Examples of landmark informationinclude, but are not limited to, geo-location data of an environmentallandmark, type of environmental landmark, and a time stamp for anyacquired information relating to an environmental landmark. In someinstances, landmark information may be acquired from locate equipmentparticularly configured to operate in a landmark mode so as to acquiresuch information, as well as one or more other modes (e.g., “locatemode” or “marking mode”) to accomplish functions relating to detectionand/or marking of underground facilities.

Tables 6A and 6B below show examples of landmark information that may beincluded in an electronic record forming part of either marking devicedata 1252 or locate receiver data 1254 of locating equipment data 1250.Table 6A shows the format and content of an electronic record entry fora utility pole, which includes one geo-location data point, and Table 6Bshows the format and content of an electronic record entry for apedestal, which includes four geo-location data points (i.e., one foreach corner of the pedestal). As noted above, it should be appreciatedthat the format and content shown below in Tables 6A and 6B is providedprimarily for purposes of illustration, and that a variety of formatsand content may be employed for an electronic record entry for landmarkinformation.

Table 6A: Example record of landmark information acquired for a utilitypole Record Service provider ID 0482 #1 User ID 4815 Device ID 7362 Typeof EL Type = utility pole timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:17.5geo-location data 2650.9256,N,08003.5234,W Locate request dataRequestor: XYZ Construction Company, Requested service address: 222 MainSt, Orlando, FL Table 6B: Example record of landmark informationacquired for a pedestal Record Service provider ID 0482 #2 User ID 4815Device ID 7362 Type of EL Type = pedestal Timestamp data 12-Jul-2008;09:35:17.5 geo-location data 2650.9256,N,08003.5234,W Type of EL Type =pedestal Timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:21.2 geo-location data2650.9256,N,08003.5226,W Type of EL Type = pedestal Timestamp data12-Jul-2008; 09:35:26.7 geo-location data 2650.9288,N,08003.5188,W Typeof EL Type = pedestal Timestamp data 12-Jul-2008; 09:35:33.5geo-location data 2650.9321,N,08003.5177,W Locate request dataRequestor: XYZ Construction Company, Requested service address: 222 MainSt, Orlando, FL

D. Electronic Manifests

Electronic Manifest (EM) application 1260 of data sources 1216 is acomputer software application that may be used to create an electronicmanifest of a locate and/or marking operation. As discussed above, anelectronic manifest may include a digital (e.g., aerial) image of thework site/dig area and its surroundings, upon which may be overlaid anyof a variety of information relating to a locate and/or markingoperation (e.g., derived from any of the information discussed above inconnection with electronic records generated by various locateequipment). In one example of an electronic manifest, one or more“electronic locate marks” are overlaid on a digital image for indicatingcorresponding physical locate marks that have been placed on the ground,pavement or other surface at the site, thereby indicating thegeo-locations and types of facilities present. One or more landmarksalso may be indicated on the digital image together with the electroniclocate marks. Via the EM application 1260, the digital images may bemarked up “manually” by a technician (e.g., using a stylus or other typeof user interface in conjunction with the digital image displayed in adisplay field) to include one or more electronic locate marks and/or oneor more identifiers for environmental landmarks. Alternatively, adigital image may be marked up “automatically” by importing data, forexample, from one or more pieces of locate equipment (e.g., a locatedevice, a marking device, or a combined locate and marking device) andoverlaying the imported data on the digital image.

In one example, the starting digital images to be marked up using EMapplication 1260 may be VWL images 1232 that are associated with tickets1220. In this manner, the resulting EM image may contain the originaldig area indicator (e.g., from the VWL image) to indicate or delimit thedig area for the locate and marking operation, together with anyelectronic locate marks and/or landmarks added to the image via the EMapplication. The marked up digital images may be saved as, for example,EM images 1262, which may be associated with, for example, tickets 1220and may be used by locate companies to support proof of work compliance.In some embodiments, EM application 1260 may implemented as described inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/369,232, filed Feb. 11, 2009entitled “Searchable records of underground facility locate markingoperations,” which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

As noted above in connection with VWL images 1232 provided by VWLapplication 1230, an EM image 1262 may include metadata corresponding toany markings or content in the image; in particular, geographiccoordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude values) for any dig areaindicator, electronic locate marks, and/or landmarks marked on the imagemay accompany or be included in an image file as metadata. Accordingly,these geographic coordinates, as well as any other information providedby EM application, may be employed in some manner as part of a qualityassessment process (e.g., as field information/data, or in someinstances as reference information/data, or in some instances topre-process or filter one or both of field information/data andreference information/data prior to comparison).

FIG. 5 shows an example of an electronic manifest 900 that comprisesboth image data and non-image data. In this example, the electronicmanifest 900 comprises a marked-up image 905 showing locate markindicators 910 (e.g., to indicate locations of physical locate marks),offset indicia 915 (e.g., to indicate distances between physical locatemarks and certain environmental landmarks) and dig area indicators 920(e.g., as provided by an excavator on a VWL image). In addition, theelectronic manifest 900 comprises non-image information relating to thelocate and/or marking operation, such as a ticket number or identifier925, a name or identifier 930 associated with the locate technician(which may indicate facility owner/operator, or locatecompany/technician), a time and date stamp 935 indicating when theelectronic manifest was created, a location stamp 940 indicating wherethe electronic manifest was created, a completed checklist 945 ofmarkings used in the locate and/or marking operation, and a locatetechnician signature 950 certifying that the information of theelectronic manifest is correct.

Although FIG. 5 shows an example of an electronic manifest includingspecific types of ticket information, it should be appreciated that anelectronic manifest as described herein is not limited in this regard,and may alternatively include other combinations of ticket information.Also, an electronic manifest may be displayed and/or formatted inmanners different from the example shown in FIG. 5.

The underlying electronic data used to generate an electronic manifest(e.g., the electronic manifest 900 shown in FIG. 5) may be representedand/or stored in any suitable manner, as the present disclosure is notlimited in this respect. In some embodiments, the marked-up image(s) andthe non-image information may be stored as a single file. For example,the non-image information may be included as metadata associated withthe marked-up image(s). In other embodiments, the marked-up image(s) andthe non-image information may be formatted as separate data sets and maybe transmitted and/or stored separately. In another aspect, whethertransmitted/stored separately or together, the marked-up image(s) andthe non-image information may be linked together in some manner asrelating to a common electronic record.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a data set 1000 that may be used to generatean electronic manifest. In this example, the data set 1000 may include atimestamp field 1010, a facility type identifier field 1020, a facilitymark location field 1030, an environmental landmark identifier field1040, an environmental landmark location field 1050, an otherinformation field 1060, a facility owner/operator field 1065, a markingmethod field 1070, a property address field 1080, a ticket number field1090, a location stamp field 1015, and a certification field 1025.

Although FIG. 6 shows specific examples of information fields, it shouldbe appreciated that the present disclosure is not limited in thisregard. In other implementations, the data set 1000 may includeadditional, fewer, or different fields. Some exemplary informationfields are discussed briefly below.

The timestamp field 1010 may include time data that identifies the dayand/or time that a locate and/or marking operation is performed. Thismay coincide with a time at which an environmental landmark location isidentified in connection with the dig area. The time data in thetimestamp field 1010 is shown in FIG. 10 as 9:43 a.m. on Oct. 20, 2005,although any type of date and/or time code may be used. The informationin timestamp field 1010 may be useful in establishing when a locateand/or marking operation occurred.

The facility type identifier field 1020 may include an identifier thatidentifies a type of underground facility that is being marked. Theidentifier in the facility type identifier field 1020 is shown in FIG.10 as “power,” although any type of identifier may be used. The facilitymark location field 1030 may include geographical informationcorresponding to a physical locate mark. In some implementations, thegeographical information may identify a set of geographical points alonga marking path of a located facility line. The geographical informationin the facility mark location field 1030 is shown in FIG. 10 asN38°51.40748, W077°20.27798; . . . ; N38°51.40784, W077°20.27865,although any type of geographical information may be used.

The information in the facility mark location field 1030 may be usefulin graphically presenting the facility locate marks on a map, and/or toverify that the locate and/or marking operation was actually andaccurately performed. Additionally, or alternatively, the facility marklocation field 1030 may include geographical information for multiplefacility locate marks.

The environmental landmark identifier field 1040 may include anidentifier that identifies a type of environmental landmark beingmarked. The identifier in environmental landmark identifier field 1040is shown in FIG. 10 as “curb,” although any type of identifier may beused. The environmental landmark location field 1050 may includegeographical information corresponding to the environmental landmarkidentified in the environmental landmark identifier field 1040. Thegeographical information in the environmental landmark location field1050 is shown in FIG. 10 as N38°51.40756, W077°20.27805; . . . ;N38°51.40773, W077°20.27858, although any type of geographicalinformation may be used.

The other information field 1060 may store any other data that may beuseful, including user notes, such as offset or distance informationthat identifies a distance between one or more environmental landmarksand one or more facility locate marks. The other information field 1060is shown in FIG. 10 as including “1.2 meters between curb and powerline,” although any other data may be used. Additionally, oralternatively, the other information field 1060 may include audio/voicedata, transcribed voice-recognition data, or the like to incorporateuser notes.

E. Facilities Maps

Facilities maps 1280 of data sources 1216 are any physical, electronic,or other representation of the geographic location, type, number, and/orother attributes of a facility or facilities. Facilities maps 1280 maybe supplied by the various facility owners and may indicate thegeographic location of the facility lines (e.g., pipes, cables, and thelike) owned and/or operated by the facility owner. For example,facilities maps 1280 may be supplied by the owner of the gas facilities,power facilities, telecommunications facilities, water and sewerfacilities, and so on. In the process of performing the automaticquality assessment, information processing component 1210 may aggregatethe information that is contained in multiple facilities maps 1280 inorder to determine all the facilities that are present in and around acertain work site/dig area.

As indicated above, facilities maps may be provided in any of a varietyof different formats. As facilities maps often are provided by facilityowners of a given type of facility, typically a set of facilities mapsincludes a group of maps covering a particular geographic region anddirected to showing a particular type of facility disposed/deployedthroughout the geographic region. One facilities map of the set of mapsis sometimes referred to in the relevant arts as a “plat.”

Perhaps the simplest form of facilities maps is a set of paper maps thatcover a particular geographic region. In addition, some facilities mapsmay be provided in electronic form. An electronic facilities map may insome instances simply be an electronic conversion (i.e., a scan) of apaper facilities map that includes no other information (e.g.,electronic information) describing the content of the map, other thanwhat is printed on the paper maps.

Alternatively, however, more sophisticated facilities maps also areavailable which include a variety of electronic information, includinggeographic information and other detailed information, regarding thecontents of various features included in the maps. In particular,facilities maps may be formatted as geographic information system (GIS)map files, in which map features (e.g., facility lines and otherfeatures) are represented as shapes and/or lines, and the file providesmetadata describing the geographic locations and types of map features.In some examples, a GIS map file may indicate a facility line using astraight line, and may include some symbol or other annotation (e.g., adiamond shape) at each endpoint of the line to indicate where the linebegins and terminates. From the foregoing, it should be appreciated thatin some instances, given that the geo-locations of two termination orend-points of a given facility line may be provided by the map, thegeo-location of any point on the facility line may be determined fromthese two end-points.

Examples of a wide variety of environmental landmarks that may berepresented in a GIS facilities map file include, but are not limitedto: landmarks relating to facilities such as pedestal boxes, utilitypoles, fire hydrants, manhole covers and the like; one or morearchitectural elements (e.g., buildings); and/or one or more trafficinfrastructure elements (e.g., streets, intersections, curbs, ramps,bridges, tunnels, etc.). A GIS facilities map file may also includevarious shapes or symbols indicating different environmental landmarksrelating to facilities, architectural elements, and/or trafficinfrastructure elements.

Examples of information provided by metadata for the map file (i.e.,included as part of the electronic file for the map) include, but arenot limited to, information about the geo-location of various pointsalong a given line, the termination points of a given line (e.g., thediamond shapes indicating the start and end of the line), the type offacility line (e.g., facility type and whether the line is a serviceline or main), geo-location of various shapes and/or symbols for otherfeatures represented in the map (environmental landmarks relating tofacilities, architectural elements, and/or traffic infrastructureelements), and type information relating to shapes and/or symbols forsuch other features.

Facilities maps may include additional information that may be useful toa quality assessment process. For example, various information that maybe included in a legend of the facilities map, or otherwise associatedwith the facilities map (e.g., included in the metadata or otherwiserepresented on the map), and available for use in a quality assessmentprocess, may include, but is not limited to, a date of the facilitiesmap (e.g., when the map was first generated/created, and/or additionaldates corresponding to updates/revisions), a number of revisions to thefacilities map (e.g., revision number, which may in some instances beassociated with a date), one or more identifiers for a source, creator,owner and/or custodian of the facilities map (e.g., the owner of thefacility type represented in the map), various text information (e.g.,annotations to update one or more aspects or elements of the map), andany other legend information that may be included or represented in themap.

FIG. 7 shows an example of a visual representation of a portion of anelectronic facilities map 500. In this example, facilities map 500 is atelecommunications facilities map that is supplied by atelecommunications company. Facilities map 500 shows telecommunicationsfacilities in relation to certain landmarks, such as streets and roads,using lines and shapes. As discussed above, the electronic facilitiesmap may include metadata indicating what various lines, symbols and/orshapes represent, and indicating the geo-location of these lines,symbols and/or shapes. With respect to exemplary environmentallandmarks, facilities map 500 may include both visual information andmetadata relating to utility poles 502, manhole 504, and any of avariety of other landmarks that may fall within the geographic areacovered by the facilities map 500.

IV. Exemplary Automated Assessment Methods

FIG. 8 shows a flow diagram of an exemplary process 1300 for performinga quality assessment of an underground facility locate and/or markingoperation, as implemented by automated quality assessment application1200. While the example provided in FIG. 8 is a more specific example ofthe generic process 1900 discussed above in connection with FIG. 3, anddescribes an automated quality assessment based on a completed or closedticket for which it is presumed that a locate and/or marking operationwas actually performed by a technician, it should be appreciated thatthe concepts generally outlined in the process 1300 may be applied tovarious types of available information relating to a requested locateoperation and marking operation, whether performed separately or intandem, and irrespective of actual performance of the locate operationand/or the marking operation, so as to assess the quality of therequested operation.

Process 1300 begins at act 1310, where a completed (i.e., closed) ticketis received and associated information to be used in assessing thequality of the locate and marking operation performed in connection withthe ticket is collected by automated quality assessment application1200. The associated ticket information may include, for example, theoriginating ticket information (e.g., textual ticket information 1222 ofa certain ticket 1220), and one or more of the VWL images (e.g., a VWLimage 1232 of a certain ticket 1220), the originating ticket assessment(e.g., a ticket assessment outcome 1242 of a certain ticket 1220), thelocating equipment data (e.g., marking device data 1252 and/or locatereceiver data 1254 of a certain ticket 1220), the EM images (e.g., a EMimage 1262 of a certain ticket 1220), and any other information (e.g.,from other electronic information and/or records 1295).

The process then continues to act 1312, where the received informationis used to automatically assess the quality of the locate and markingoperation. In the example of FIG. 8, a locate operation is categorizedas either (a) APPROVED—the operation is approved, no further actionneeded; (b) SATISFACTORY—the operation is approved, but the locatetechnician needs coaching or training; (c) UNSATISFACTORY—the operationis not approved, the ticket needs QC action; or (d) PROMPT—an aspect ofthe operation assessment may be suitable for transmitting a real-timeprompt to the locate technician with respect to, for example, performinga substantially immediate verification and/or corrective action.However, the invention is not limited in this respect, as any suitableindication of quality may be provided as a result of an automaticquality assessment, such as, a numerical score (e.g., a score from0-100%), a letter grade, another type of graduated indictor based onsome scale or range, or any other indication of quality. Additionaldetails and examples of how quality may be automatically assessed at act1312 and an indication (e.g., a categorization) of quality may beautomatically generated at act 1314 are discussed below. It should beappreciated that the invention is not limited to these particularexamples, and that such examples are provided primarily for the purposesof illustration.

V. Assessments Relating to Environmental Landmarks

In some embodiments, the quality assessment of a locate and/or markingoperation performed in act 1312 of FIG. 8 may be based entirely or inpart on a comparison of information about the performance of the locateand/or marking operation (e.g., “field information,” i.e., one or moreof locate information, marking information, landmark information and EMinformation, obtained from one or more of a locate device, a markingdevice, a combination locate and marking device, and an EM applicationexecuting on any of a variety of computing devices) and referenceinformation relating to one or more environmental landmarks. Inexemplary embodiments in which the reference information comprises datarelating to one or more environmental landmarks (“landmark information,”e.g., geographic information and/or landmark category/type informationrelating to one or more environmental landmarks), a variety ofassessments are possible.

For example, in a first embodiment relating to environmental landmarks,field information including geographic information, facility typeinformation, and/or other information relating to an undergroundfacility identified and/or marked during a locate and/or markingoperation may be compared to reference information comprising landmarkinformation to determine whether or not the location and/or type of oneor more facilities identified and/or marked during the locate and/ormarking operation are expected in view of the location and/or type ofone or more environmental landmarks. Such a comparison may includeidentifying at least one correspondence or discrepancy between thecompared data based on or more criteria. The landmark information may bederived, for example, from one or more facilities maps, one or morehistorical tickets, or may be collected together with (e.g., essentiallyconcurrently with) various information relating to the locate and/ormarking operation (the locate and/or marking operation to be assessedmay include acquisition of landmark information relating to one or moreenvironmental landmarks, and this landmark information may be used forthe assessment).

In a second exemplary embodiment relating to environmental landmarks,“new” landmark information collected as part of a current/recent locateand/or marking operation (e.g., via a suitably configured markingdevice, locate device, or combined locate and marking device, and/orindicated on an electronic manifest for the locate and/or markingoperation) may be compared to “reference” landmark information. Thereference landmark information may be derived, for example, from one ormore facilities maps or one or more historical tickets (which themselvesmay include previous electronic manifests), and such a comparison mayserve as a basis for assessment. In one aspect of this embodiment, both“new” landmark information and other information relating to the locateand/or marking operation (e.g., geographic information, facility typeinformation, etc.) may be compared to the reference landmark informationand other facility-related information derived from one or morefacilities maps, one or more historical tickets, or other informationsources, such that an assessment is based both on a comparison ofenvironmental landmarks and facilities.

In some exemplary embodiments discussed in greater detail below,geographic information in the field data is compared to geographicinformation in the reference data. For example, field geo-location data(e.g., one or more sets of latitude and longitude coordinates) relatingto the detection and/or marking of a given underground facility or otheractivity during a locate and/or marking operation, and/or fieldgeo-location data relating to one or more environmental landmarks, maybe compared to reference geo-location data relating to one or moreenvironmental landmarks.

More specifically, in some implementations, latitude and longitudecoordinates corresponding to a detected and/or marked facility, and/orlatitude and longitude coordinates corresponding to one or moreenvironmental landmarks (field geo-location data), are compared tolatitude and longitude coordinates (transformed if necessary to a commonreference frame) relating to one or more environmental landmarks(reference geo-location data). In this manner, a correspondence ordiscrepancy (or degree of correspondence) may be ascertained between thefield geo-location data and the reference geo-location data.

As discussed in greater detail below, a first set of field latitude andlongitude coordinates, constituting lines or curves representingunderground facilities detected and/or marked during the locate and/ormarking operation, and/or one or more latitude and longitude coordinatesconstituting points or polygons representing environmental landmarks,may be compared to a corresponding set of reference latitude andlongitude coordinates to determine a degree of matching between the twosets, in a manner akin to pattern matching. Additionally oralternatively, such sets of points may be compared to determine somerelationship between the sets of points that bears upon an assessment(e.g., do the end points of a given facility line of a particularfacility type essentially correspond to a geographic location of one ormore environmental landmarks relating to that facility type?). This maybe useful in determining not only how closely the locate marks formed bythe technician correspond to the presumed physical location(s) of theunderground facilities, but also if the detection and/or marking of aparticular facility line “makes sense” in the context of itsenvironment, based on various landmarks in the environment.

Although comparisons of field geo-location data and referencegeo-location data to facilitate an automated quality assessment processare described in some exemplary embodiments discussed in greater detailbelow, it should be appreciated that more generally, in otherembodiments, a variety of other information contained in fieldinformation/data and reference information/data may be used as a basisfor an automated quality assessment. For example, field informationpertaining to the number and/or types of facilities detected and/ormarked during a locate and/or marking information, and/or the numberand/or types of environmental landmarks present (or that no landmarksare present), may be compared to similar reference information derivedfrom one or more facilities maps, historical tickets, etc., withoutregard to geographic information (e.g., by noting from various sourcesof reference information what types of landmarks are present or notpresent corresponding to a given work site/dig area, and/or how manylandmarks of a particular type are present or not present). In thisrespect, it should be appreciated that the absence of landmarks in agiven geographic area, or absence of landmarks of a particular type in agiven geographic area, constitutes useful landmark information. Forexample, field data relating to the a marked facility line thatterminates at a point at which there is no landmark present (e.g., of anappropriate category and/or type for the facility line in question) mayindicate an erroneous or incomplete marking operation; in this sense,the reference information relating to one or more environmentallandmarks includes information about the absence of any landmarks (e.g.,in a location where one might otherwise be expected).

In another example, field information pertaining to an arrangement orpattern (i.e., relative positions) of multiple lines for a same type offacility, multiple different facility types detected and/or markedduring a locate and marking information, and/or multiple environmentallandmarks may be compared to similar reference information (“relativeposition information”) derived from any one or more sources of referenceinformation pertaining to environmental landmarks, irrespective of thepresumed physical geographic location(s) of the respectivefacilities/lines/landmarks (i.e., the general pattern of lines and/orlandmarks detected and/or marked in the field may be compared to thegeneral pattern of landmarks as represented in reference information).The foregoing and other examples of assessments based on different typesof information relating to environmental landmarks is discussed infurther detail below in connection with various embodiments.

FIGS. 9A and 9B provide illustrative depictions based on variousinformation that may be available, according to one embodiment, relatingto locate and/or marking operations, which information may facilitate anassessment of the operation based at least in part on landmarkinformation. As discussed in greater detail below, various informationderived from electronic records generated by locate equipment,electronic manifests, tickets, facilities maps, and the like may bevisually rendered in a display field (e.g., of a display coupled to thesystem 1800 shown in FIG. 2) to provide a visual aid in connection withan assessment process. In some exemplary implementations, electronicvisual renderings may be provided by an EM (electronic manifest)application, as discussed above. For purposes of illustrating variousconcepts relating to analysis and assessment of locate and/or markingoperations based on landmark information, FIG. 9A illustrates a firstelectronic visual rendering 1600A of a first locate and/or markingoperation and FIG. 9B illustrates a second electronic visual rendering1600B of a second locate and/or marking operation.

In FIGS. 9A and 9B, marking information (and/or locate information), aswell as landmark information, are used to provide the exemplaryelectronic visual renderings, showing the relative positions of variouselements. For example, the electronic rendering 1600A shown in FIG. 9Aincludes a first lines pattern 1610 representing a power line, and asecond lines pattern 1612 representing a telephone line, each of whichincludes electronic locate marks representing corresponding physicallocate marks placed on ground, pavement or other surface during amarking operation (it should be appreciated that additionally, oralternatively, locate information representing where a given undergroundfacility was detected may be used for such electronic visualrenderings). Similarly, FIG. 9A shows various identifiers (e.g.,symbols, icons, lines or patterns, etc.) for multiple environmentallandmarks; in particular, a building 1614, a pedestal 1618, a utilitypole 1616, and a curb 1620 are shown in the electronic rendering 1600A.For purposes of the present discussion, it is presumed that geographicinformation (e.g., geo-location data points, such as GPS coordinates)from one or more information sources (e.g., electronic records) isavailable for the depicted lines pattern and the environmentallandmarks, and such geographic information forms the basis for theelectronic visual rendering so as to appropriately illustrate therelative positions of various elements shown.

The relative positions of electronic locate marks representing marked(and/or detected) underground facilities and one or more environmentallandmarks in or proximate to the work site/dig area in which thefacilities were marked (and/or detected) often provide valuableinformation toward assessing the accuracy and/or completeness of alocate and/or marking operation. For example, as shown in FIG. 9A, giventhe presence of the utility pole 1616 and the building 1614, it would beexpected to encounter the lines pattern 1610, representing an electricalpower line, traversing some path between the utility pole 616 and thebuilding 1614. Furthermore, the presence and footprint of the curb 1620may be instructive, as in some situations it would be expected toencounter some types of underground facilities (such as the power linerepresented by the lines pattern 1610) following the general footprintand path of the curb (e.g., running essentially parallel to the curb,perhaps at a particular offset; to this end, in some instances anenvironmental landmark such as the curb may provide a reference pointfor a “tie down” to the underground facility). Similarly, given thepresence of the pedestal 1618, it would be expected to encounter thelines pattern 1612, representing a telephone line, traversing some pathbetween the pedestal and the building.

In view of the foregoing examples, it should be appreciated that avariety of environmental landmarks may be utilized according to theinventive concepts described herein as instructive reference points todetermine the feasibility and/or expectation of encountering anunderground facility, and thereby facilitate an assessment of the locateand/or marking operation. For example, for the marking operationdepicted in FIG. 9A, geographic information relating to the electroniclocate marks representing marked utilities may be compared to geographicinformation relating to the environmental landmarks to assess accuracyand/or completeness. A variety of criteria and/or metrics for one ormore criteria may be used in such an assessment, as discussed in greaterdetail below. In particular, the presence of the utility pole 1616 in ornear the work site suggests that a power line should be detected andmarked; the presence of the building 1614 suggests that the power lineshould follow some path between the utility pole and the building.Accordingly, geo-location data points representing the end points of themarked power line may be compared to geo-location data pointsrepresenting one or both of the utility pole and a corner of thebuilding (for example) to determine a degree of correspondence ordiscrepancy between these data points (e.g., Are the end points of theelectronic locate marks for the power line within some thresholddistance of the utility pole and/or the building? Does the power lineextend completely between the utility pole and the building, or does itappear to terminate in the middle of nowhere?). A similar comparison maybe done for geo-location data points representing the electronic locatemarks for the telephone line (lines pattern 1612) and geo-location datapoints for the pedestal 1618 (e.g., Are the end points of the electroniclocate marks for the telephone line within some threshold distance ofthe pedestal and/or the building?).

While the scenario illustrated in FIG. 9A provides an example of a“satisfactory” marking operation according to exemplary criteria in thatfacility lines are marked as expected with reference to notedenvironmental landmarks, the scenario illustrated in FIG. 9B illustratesan incomplete and possibly suspect or “unsatisfactory” marking operationaccording to some exemplary criteria. For example, an assessment methodbased on environmental landmarks may first note all environmentallandmarks for which information is available (e.g., geo-location datafor landmarks, type data for landmarks, etc.) and, for each landmark,examine other available information for any facilities detected and/ormarked in or near the environmental landmark (e.g., within some radiusor threshold distance of one or more geo-location data points for thelandmark). If no such detected and/or marked facility is found, andindication of a suspect (e.g. may need follow-up and/or coaching) orunsatisfactory quality assessment may be provided.

With the foregoing in mind, it may be observed from FIG. 9B that, inthis second marking operation represented by the electronic rendering1600B, there is no lines pattern 1612 representing the telephone line,notwithstanding the presence of the pedestal 1618. Thus, in assessingthe available information in this scenario, the presence of the pedestal1618 without any telephone lines marked in the vicinity of the pedestalsuggests that the locate and/or marking operation is perhaps incomplete,and may be indicated accordingly as suspect (e.g., needs follow-upand/or coaching) or unsatisfactory. In another example based on theforegoing, an assessment process may similarly provide an indication ofa suspect or unsatisfactory locate and/or marking operation if a type offacility is found terminating at or intersecting an environmentallandmark of a type that is inconsistent with the facility type (e.g., apower line terminating at or near a fire hydrant). In yet anotherexample, an assessment process may similarly provide an indication of asuspect or unsatisfactory locate if an offset between a detected and/ormarked line and an environmental landmark serving as a tie-down (e.g.,the offset between the curb 1620 and the lines pattern 1610) is notwithin some prescribed threshold distance.

In the foregoing example, information relating to one or more facilitylines detected and/or marked during a locate and/or marking operationwas compared to landmark information. In another embodiment, “new”landmark information collected as part of a current/recent locate and/ormarking operation (e.g., via a suitably configured marking device,locate device, or combined locate and marking device, and/or indicatedon an electronic manifest for the locate and/or marking operation) maybe compared to “reference” landmark information (e.g., derived from oneor more facilities maps or one or more historical tickets), and such acomparison may serve as a basis for assessment. In one aspect, such anassessment may focus primarily on the consistency or inconsistency oflandmark information at or near a same work site. To this end, anylandmark information available in an electronic record of a locateand/or marking operation may be compared to any landmark informationfrom available reference information; in one exemplary implementation,geographic information (e.g., geo-location data points) for any landmarkrepresented in landmark information from the field may be compared toreference geographic information for landmarks. As with the exemplaryassessments discussed above in connection with FIGS. 9A and 9B, anygeographic information relating to either facility lines orenvironmental landmarks may be compared, in some instances on a pergeo-location data point basis, to determine distances between comparedpoints and make various assessments based thereon (e.g., is the distancebetween two points, or two sets of points, within some predeterminedthreshold).

More specifically, in one embodiment, a set of “field” geo-location datapoints (e.g. representing facility line or environmental landmarkgeographic information relating to a locate and/or marking operation)may be compared to the set of “reference” geo-location data pointsrelating to environmental landmarks serving as a basis for assessment,to determine geographic distance between them. Such a comparison may beexecuted in block 1312 of one exemplary implementation of the process1300 shown in FIG. 8.

In particular, FIG. 10 shows an illustrative process 700 for determiningdistance between points in two sets, X and Y, of geo-location datapoints (the process 700 may be executed in block 1312 of the process1300). Each of these sets may include a plurality of geo-location datapoints (e.g., latitude and longitude values or x,y coordinate pairs),and the geo-location data points in set X typically are in the samereference frame (e.g., coordinate system) as the geo-location datapoints in set Y. In embodiments in which the process 700 is used tocompare a set of field geo-location data points to a set of referencegeo-location data points relating to one or more environmentallandmarks, set X may include the field points and set Y may include thereference points. Process 700 defines the distance between the two setsX and Y as a vector of distances d₀ . . . d_(n), where each distanced_(i) indicates the distance between a point x_(i) in set X and thepoint y_(c) in set Y that is closest to x_(i).

Referring to FIG. 10, the illustrative process 700 begins at act 10 byinitializing a variable n to zero. The process continues to act 20,where a point x_(n) in the set X is selected, where x_(n) is the n^(th)point in the set X. The process next continues to act 30, where thepoint in set Y that is closest to the point x_(n) is identified and isset as the variable y_(c). That is, among all the points in the set Y,the selected point y_(c) is the one closest to point x_(n). The processthen continues to act 40, where the distance between x_(n) and y_(c) isrecorded and stored in the variable d_(n). The process next continues toact 50, where it is determined whether there are any more points in theset X to process. When it is determined that the set X contains one ormore points yet to be processed, the process 700 continues to act 60,where the value of n is incremented by one. The process then returns act20, where the next point in the set X is selected. If, at act 50, it isdetermined that there are no more points in set X to process, theprocess 700 ends.

It should be appreciated that each of the sets X and Y may include anynumber of geo-location data points, as the present disclosure is notlimited in this respect. For example, in some embodiments, one or bothof the sets may have only one geo-location data point specifying asingle point on Earth. In other embodiments, one or both sets may havemultiple geo-location data points specifying multiple points on Earth.

Additionally, the process 700 may be applied to determine a measure ofdistance between any two sets of points in any space in which a measureof distance can be defined between two points. Thus, the application ofthe process 700 is not limited to geo-location data points expressed inan absolute frame of reference that ties the geo-location data tospecific points on Earth. For example, in some embodiments, thegeo-location data points in set X and set Y may not be expressed inlatitude and longitude, but rather may be expressed as locations (e.g.,distance and direction) relative to some other reference point (e.g., anarbitrary reference point, a reference point defined by one or morefacilities maps, a reference point defined by some environmentallandmark, or some other reference point).

The process 700 is also not limited to any particular technique fordetermining the distance between two points, as any of numeroustechniques may be used. For example, in an embodiment where thegeo-location data points are expressed in latitudinal and longitudinalcoordinates, a distance between two points may be calculated accordingto the great-circle distance in spherical geometry, using Vincenty'sinverse method for computing geographical distance between two points,or using some other method. In some embodiments in which the coordinatesfor the two points are each two-dimensional Cartesian coordinates in acommon grid system, the straight line distance between these two pointsmay be determined using the following formula:d=sqrt((x₂−x₁)²+(y₂−y₁)²).

In embodiments in which the process illustrated in FIG. 10 is used toperform the function indicated in block 1312 of the process 1300 shownin FIG. 8, in some exemplary implementations the quality assessment maybe based on the distance between any two closest points compared (e.g.,a geo-location data point from the field data corresponding to a firehydrant, and a closest geo-location data point from the reference datacorresponding to a fire hydrant as represented in a facilities mapcovering the area of the work site). In particular, the assessment mayestablish a threshold distance for each pair within which the distancebetween the respective compared geo-location data points must fall. Aunique threshold distance may be established for different pairs ofpoints, or similar/same threshold distances may be established forgroups of points or all of the data compared. Furthermore, in variousimplementations, the type of points compared from the field andreference data sets may be depend on the nature of the assessment; forexample, in one implementation, termination points of facility lines ofa particular type from the field data are compared to referencegeo-location data points of environmental landmarks of a particular typeto assess if the facility line(s) appropriately terminate at an expectedenvironmental landmark.

In yet other implementations, a percentage of field geo-location datapoints that are within a threshold distance of corresponding referencegeo-location data points may be used as a basis for assessment. That is,as discussed above, the process of FIG. 10 generates a vector ofdistances d₀ . . . d_(n), where each distance d indicates the distancebetween one field geo-location data point and one reference geo-locationdata point. Thus, in some embodiments, the quality assessment may bebased on the percentage of these distances that are within somepredetermined range or threshold.

Table 7 below shows one possible technique for generating a qualityassessment of a locate and/or marking operation in this way using ascoring table. Techniques for generating a scoring table and computing ascore using a scoring table are described in greater detail in U.S.Non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 12/493,109, filed Jun. 26,2009, entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Quality Assessment of a FieldService Operation,” incorporated by reference herein. As shown in Table7, the criterion on which the quality of locate and/or marking operationis being assessed is listed in the leftmost column. For this criterion,the table includes one or more expected or reference values or rangesfor the criterion, also referred to as “metrics,” against whichinformation about the locate and/or marking operation ismeasured/compared. The metrics are divided into several “scoringcategories,” namely, value(s)/condition(s) that, if met, result in aparticular score.

For purposes of the analysis illustrated in Table 7, fieldinformation/data is referred to as ACTUAL DATA, and referenceinformation/data is referred to as EXPECT DATA. A quality assessment forthe indicated criterion is based on a comparison of the ACTUAL DATA tothe EXPECT DATA (e.g., so as to determine in what scoring category theACTUAL DATA falls as a result of the comparison). For purposes of thediscussion that follows, although examples based on numeric scores areprovided, the term “score” as used herein is intended to more generallydenote any of a variety of graduated indicators for a quality assessment(which in turn may be based on a variety of ranges, scales andresolutions/granularity for the indicators).

TABLE 7 Expected value or range (metrics) Criterion Preferred MarginalUnacceptable EXP: Distance between Within 1 Within 2 feet but Greaterthan 2 field landmark and foot. greater than 1 feet reference landmarkfoot ACT: Distance 8 inches between field landmark and referencelandmark

In the example of Table 7, the criterion on which the quality of thelocate operation is being assessed is the distance between a landmarkrepresented in the field data, and the same type of landmark representedin the reference data. Additionally, in this example, there are threescoring categories: Preferred; Marginal; and Unacceptable. For eachscoring category, there is a metric used to evaluate the contents of thedistance vector [d₀ . . . d_(n)] resulting from the comparison of thefield data and the reference data to determine in which scoring categorythe results of the comparison fall. In the example of Table 7, anevaluation of the distance vector shows that, for the landmark inquestion, the distance between the field data and the reference data waswithin one foot, and hence falls into the preferred category.

With reference again to act 1905 of FIG. 3 (or, similarly, act 1314 ofFIG. 8), in some embodiments a score, grade, or categorization may beassigned as an output to categorize the quality assessment process basedon into which scoring category the assessment falls. For example, insome embodiments, each scoring category may be associated with a numberof points (e.g., 2 points for Preferred, 1 point for Marginal, and 0points for Unacceptable), and the quality assessment may be awarded thenumber of points associated with the scoring category into which itfalls. Thus, for example, in the example of Table 7, 2 points may beawarded, because the operation falls in the “Preferred” scoringcategory.

In some embodiments, the number of points awarded may be converted to apercent score that is based on the number of points awarded and amaximum possible number of points. Thus, for example, in the example ofTable 7, the locate and/or marking operation received two points out ofa maximum possible two points. As such, the locate and/or markingoperation may be assigned a score of 2/2 or 100%. If the assessmentresults were to fall in the “Marginal” category and receive only onepoint, then it may be assigned a score of 1/2 or 50%. Similarly, if theassessment results were to fall in the unacceptable category and receivezero points, then it may be assigned a score of 0/2 or 0%.

In some embodiments, a range of percent scores may be converted toletter scores to provide an indication of quality. For example, apercent score of 100-90% may be converted to a letter score of A, 89-80%may be converted to a letter score of B, 79-70% may be converted to aletter score of C, 69-60% may be converted to a letter score of D, and<60% may be converted to a letter score of F. In yet another example, arange of percent scores may be converted to a simple PASS/FAIL score.For example, a percent score of 100-60% may be converted to a score ofPASS and a percent score of <60% may be converted to a score of FAIL.

In some embodiments, the quality assessment illustrated in Table 7 maybe used in the process of FIG. 8 to categorize the locate and/or markingoperation as either “Approved” “Coach” or “QC Referral. For example,Table 7 may be used at act 1312 to assess the quality of the locateand/or marking operation. Based on this assessment, the quality of theoperation may be categorized at act 1314. For example, if the operationfalls in the “Preferred” scoring category in Table 7 it may becategorized as “Approved” at act 1314; if the operation falls in the“Marginal” scoring category, it may be categorized as “Coach;” and ifthe operation falls in the “Unacceptable” scoring category it may becategorized as “QC Referral.”

In the example of Table 7, three scoring categories are used, such thatthe locate and/or marking operation is classified as either Preferred,Marginal, and Unacceptable. However, the number of scoring categories ismerely illustrative, as any number of scoring categories could be used,and various mutually exclusive metrics may be assigned to these scoringcategories. For example, in some embodiments, five scoring may be used(e.g., Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, Unacceptable), while in otherembodiments more than five scoring categories may be used.

In addition, it should be appreciated that the distance threshold valuesused in the metrics in Table 7 are merely illustrative and that avariety of different percentage values and distance threshold values maybe used. In some embodiments, the distance threshold values may be basedon legal requirements pertaining to locate and/or marking operations.For example, some governments (e.g., state governments) may dictatecertain “tolerance zones” around underground facility lines or landmarksrelating to same (e.g., 12 inches, 18 inches, 24 inches, 30 inches, 36inches, etc.). Thus, in some embodiments, one or more of the metricsused in a scoring table may be based on a tolerance zone dictated bygovernment regulations.

VI. Visual Representations

In some embodiments, as discussed above, any of the field informationand reference information available to the assessment process (from anyof a variety of sources) may be visually rendered in a display field(e.g., of a display coupled to the system 1800 shown in FIG. 2) toprovide a visual aid in connection with an assessment process. In someexemplary implementations, electronic visual renderings may be providedby an EM (electronic manifest) application, as discussed above.According to one aspect of this embodiment, it is particularlyinstructive as a visual aid to “overlay” some or all of the contents ofthe field information with that of the reference information in thedisplay field, so as to provide a visual comparison of the information(e.g., as a supplement to the automated/electronic comparison of variouselements of the available field and reference information). To aid insuch a comparison, different facility types may be indicated in thedisplay field, for example, by employing different colors or line types,and different environmental landmarks may be indicated in the displayfield, for example, by employing different colors, shapes, patterns,icons, etc.

FIG. 11A illustrates an electronic visual rendering in the form of anoverlay 990A for a first locate and/or marking operation, in which thefield information includes marking information and landmark information(to constitute a “recreated locate operation” 800), and the referenceinformation includes information relating to both facility lines andlandmarks as derived from one or more facilities maps so as to providean “aggregated map” 905. Each of the field information and referenceinformation includes respective elements representing facilities linesand environmental landmarks (e.g., lines pattern 816 corresponding totelecommunications line 916, utility pole 852 corresponding to utilitypole 952, lines pattern 810 corresponding to power line 910, pedestal854 corresponding to pedestal 954, fire hydrant 856 corresponding tofire hydrant 956, etc.). From the overlay 990A of FIG. 11A, a viewer mayobtain an “at-a-glance” qualitative view of the field information ascompared to the reference information.

Electronic visual renderings such as the overlay 990A shown in FIG. 11Amay be useful in highlighting possible discrepancies between fieldinformation and reference information. For example, FIG. 11B illustratesanother electronic visual rendering of an overlay 990B for a secondlocate and/or marking operation, in which the viewer may discern adiscrepancy between one of the lines patterns represented by electroniclocate marks based on the field information, and a correspondingfacility line in the reference information. In particular, the linespattern 810 in the recreated locate operation 800 shown in the overlay990B of FIG. 11B is noticeably offset from what would appear to be theclosest corresponding facility line, i.e., the power line 910, asrepresented by geographic information in the reference information.Thus, the overlay 990B provides a useful visual tool for furtherassessing the locate and/or marking operation based on available fieldinformation and reference information.

To further facilitate visual observations of available information fromelectronic renderings, in one embodiment, each of the fieldinformation/data and the reference information data, if present in acomputer-aided visual rendering, as well as any constituent informationforming part of the field data and the reference data, may be displayedas separate “layers” of the visual rendering, such that a viewer of thevisual rendering may turn on and turn off displayed data based on acategorization of the displayed data. For example, all field data may becategorized generally under one layer designation (e.g., “Field”), andindependently enabled or disabled for display (e.g., hidden)accordingly. Similarly, all reference data may be categorized generallyunder another layer designation (e.g., “Reference”) and independentlyenabled or disabled for display accordingly. Respective layers may beenabled or disabled for display in any of a variety of manners; forexample, in one implementation, a “layer directory” or “layer legend”pane may be included in the display field (or as a separate windowselectable from the display field of the visual rendering), showing allavailable layers, and allowing a viewer to select each available layerto be either displayed or hidden, thus facilitating comparative viewingof layers.

Furthermore, any of the above-mentioned general categories for layersmay have sub-categories for sub-layers, such that each sub-layer mayalso be selectively enabled or disabled for viewing by a viewer. Forexample, under the general layer designation of “Field,” differentfacility types that may have been marked (and indicated in the fielddata by color, for example) may be categorized under different sub-layerdesignations (e.g., “Field—Electric;” “Field—Gas;” etc.); in thismanner, a viewer may be able to hide the electric field data whileviewing the gas field data, or vice versa, in addition to having theoption to view or hide all field data. Sub-layer designations similarlymay be employed for the reference data (e.g., “Reference—water/sewer;”“Reference—CATV”). Virtually any characteristic of the informationavailable for display may serve to categorize the information forpurposes of displaying layers or sub-layers.

VII. Conclusion

In sum, information relating to a locate and/or marking operation may becompared to a variety of information relating to one or moreenvironmental landmarks for purposes of assessing a quality of thelocate and/or marking operation. The types of field information beingcompared to reference information relating to one or more environmentallandmarks may include geographic information, facility type information,and/or other information relating to the facilities identified and/ormarked during the locate and/or marking operation, and/or landmarkinformation acquired during a locate and/or marking operation. Forexample, the comparison may generally involve determining whether thereis agreement between the locate and/or marking operation and informationrelating to one or more environmental landmarks, which may in turninvolve identifying at least one correspondence or discrepancy betweenthe compared data, and in some instances a degree of correspondence.

While various inventive embodiments have been described and illustratedherein, those of ordinary skill in the art will readily envision avariety of other means and/or structures for performing the functionand/or obtaining the results and/or one or more of the advantagesdescribed herein, and each of such variations and/or modifications isdeemed to be within the scope of the inventive embodiments describedherein. More generally, those skilled in the art will readily appreciatethat all parameters, dimensions, materials, and configurations describedherein are meant to be exemplary and that the actual parameters,dimensions, materials, and/or configurations will depend upon thespecific application or applications for which the inventive teachingsis/are used. Those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able toascertain using no more than routine experimentation, many equivalentsto the specific inventive embodiments described herein. It is,therefore, to be understood that the foregoing embodiments are presentedby way of example only and that, within the scope of the appended claimsand equivalents thereto, inventive embodiments may be practicedotherwise than as specifically described and claimed. Inventiveembodiments of the present disclosure are directed to each individualfeature, system, article, material, kit, and/or method described herein.In addition, any combination of two or more such features, systems,articles, materials, kits, and/or methods, if such features, systems,articles, materials, kits, and/or methods are not mutually inconsistent,is included within the inventive scope of the present disclosure.

The above-described embodiments can be implemented in any of numerousways. For example, the embodiments may be implemented using hardware,software or a combination thereof. When implemented in software, thesoftware code can be executed on any suitable processor or collection ofprocessors, whether provided in a single computer or distributed amongmultiple computers.

The various methods or processes outlined herein may be coded assoftware that is executable on one or more processors that employ anyone of a variety of operating systems or platforms. Additionally, suchsoftware may be written using any of a number of suitable programminglanguages and/or programming or scripting tools, and also may becompiled as executable machine language code or intermediate code thatis executed on a framework or virtual machine.

In this respect, various inventive concepts may be embodied as acomputer readable storage medium (or multiple computer readable storagemedia) (e.g., a computer memory, one or more floppy discs, compactdiscs, optical discs, magnetic tapes, flash memories, circuitconfigurations in Field Programmable Gate Arrays or other semiconductordevices, or other tangible computer storage medium) encoded with one ormore programs that, when executed on one or more computers or otherprocessors, perform methods that implement the various embodiments ofthe invention discussed above. The computer readable medium or media canbe transportable, such that the program or programs stored thereon canbe loaded onto one or more different computers or other processors toimplement various aspects of the present invention as discussed above.

The terms “program” or “software” are used herein in a generic sense torefer to any type of computer code or set of computer-executableinstructions that can be employed to program a computer or otherprocessor to implement various aspects of embodiments as discussedabove. Additionally, it should be appreciated that according to oneaspect, one or more computer programs that when executed perform methodsof the present invention need not reside on a single computer orprocessor, but may be distributed in a modular fashion amongst a numberof different computers or processors to implement various aspects of thepresent invention.

Computer-executable instructions may be in many forms, such as programmodules, executed by one or more computers or other devices. Generally,program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, datastructures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particularabstract data types. Typically the functionality of the program modulesmay be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.

Also, data structures may be stored in computer-readable media in anysuitable form. For simplicity of illustration, data structures may beshown to have fields that are related through location in the datastructure. Such relationships may likewise be achieved by assigningstorage for the fields with locations in a computer-readable medium thatconvey relationship between the fields. However, any suitable mechanismmay be used to establish a relationship between information in fields ofa data structure, including through the use of pointers, tags or othermechanisms that establish relationship between data elements.

Also, various inventive concepts may be embodied as one or more methods,of which an example has been provided. The acts performed as part of themethod may be ordered in any suitable way. Accordingly, embodiments maybe constructed in which acts are performed in an order different thanillustrated, which may include performing some acts simultaneously, eventhough shown as sequential acts in illustrative embodiments.

All definitions, as defined and used herein, should be understood tocontrol over dictionary definitions, definitions in documentsincorporated by reference, and/or ordinary meanings of the definedterms.

The indefinite articles “a” and “an,” as used herein in thespecification and in the claims, unless clearly indicated to thecontrary, should be understood to mean “at least one.”

The phrase “and/or,” as used herein in the specification and in theclaims, should be understood to mean “either or both” of the elements soconjoined, i.e., elements that are conjunctively present in some casesand disjunctively present in other cases. Multiple elements listed with“and/or” should be construed in the same fashion, i.e., “one or more” ofthe elements so conjoined. Other elements may optionally be presentother than the elements specifically identified by the “and/or” clause,whether related or unrelated to those elements specifically identified.Thus, as a non-limiting example, a reference to “A and/or B”, when usedin conjunction with open-ended language such as “comprising” can refer,in one embodiment, to A only (optionally including elements other thanB); in another embodiment, to B only (optionally including elementsother than A); in yet another embodiment, to both A and B (optionallyincluding other elements); etc.

As used herein in the specification and in the claims, “or” should beunderstood to have the same meaning as “and/or” as defined above. Forexample, when separating items in a list, “or” or “and/or” shall beinterpreted as being inclusive, i.e., the inclusion of at least one, butalso including more than one, of a number or list of elements, and,optionally, additional unlisted items. Only terms clearly indicated tothe contrary, such as “only one of” or “exactly one of,” or, when usedin the claims, “consisting of,” will refer to the inclusion of exactlyone element of a number or list of elements. In general, the term “or”as used herein shall only be interpreted as indicating exclusivealternatives (i.e. “one or the other but not both”) when preceded byterms of exclusivity, such as “either,” “one of,” “only one of,” or“exactly one of” “Consisting essentially of,” when used in the claims,shall have its ordinary meaning as used in the field of patent law.

As used herein in the specification and in the claims, the phrase “atleast one,” in reference to a list of one or more elements, should beunderstood to mean at least one element selected from any one or more ofthe elements in the list of elements, but not necessarily including atleast one of each and every element specifically listed within the listof elements and not excluding any combinations of elements in the listof elements. This definition also allows that elements may optionally bepresent other than the elements specifically identified within the listof elements to which the phrase “at least one” refers, whether relatedor unrelated to those elements specifically identified. Thus, as anon-limiting example, “at least one of A and B” (or, equivalently, “atleast one of A or B,” or, equivalently “at least one of A and/or B”) canrefer, in one embodiment, to at least one, optionally including morethan one, A, with no B present (and optionally including elements otherthan B); in another embodiment, to at least one, optionally includingmore than one, B, with no A present (and optionally including elementsother than A); in yet another embodiment, to at least one, optionallyincluding more than one, A, and at least one, optionally including morethan one, B (and optionally including other elements); etc.

In the claims, as well as in the specification above, all transitionalphrases such as “comprising,” “including,” “carrying,” “having,”“containing,” “involving,” “holding,” “composed of,” and the like are tobe understood to be open-ended, i.e., to mean including but not limitedto. Only the transitional phrases “consisting of” and “consistingessentially of” shall be closed or semi-closed transitional phrases,respectively, as set forth in the United States Patent Office Manual ofPatent Examining Procedures, Section 2111.03.

What is claimed is:
 1. In a computer comprising at least one hardwareprocessor, at least one tangible storage medium, and at least oneinput/output (I/O) interface, a method for evaluating a quality of alocate operation to identify a presence or an absence of at least oneunderground facility at a work site pursuant to an instruction to afield-service technician, the method comprising: A) receiving, via theat least one I/O interface, first information describing at least oneact of the field-service technician relating to identifying the presenceor the absence of the at least one underground facility duringperformance by the field-service technician of the locate operationfollowing issuance of the instruction to the field-service technician;B) electronically analyzing, via the at least one hardware processor,the first information received in A) describing the at least one act ofthe field-service technician; C) automatically generating via the atleast one hardware processor, based on B), at least one indication of aquality assessment of the locate operation, the at least one indicationof the quality assessment representing the quality of the locateoperation performed by the field-service technician; and D)electronically storing on the at least one tangible storage medium,and/or electronically transmitting via the at least one I/O interface,the at least one indication generated in C) of the quality assessment ofthe locate operation so as to provide an electronic record of thequality assessment of the locate operation.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the first information describes at least some aspects of thelocate operation as performed by the field-service technician at thework site.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein A) further comprises an actof receiving, via the at least one I/O interface, second informationrelating to a description of the locate operation to be performed, andwherein B) further comprises comparing the first information to thesecond information.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the secondinformation includes at least one of: an address for the work site; atleast one type of underground facility possibly present at the worksite; a due date by which the locate operation is to be completed; animage of the work site, wherein the image includes electronic markingsidentifying one or more locations at which excavation is planned; afirst indication of a complexity of the locate operation; a secondindication of an estimated cost to perform the locate operation; a thirdindication of a risk assessment associated with the performance of thelocate operation; and a textual description of a type of excavationplanned at the work site.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the firstinformation is generated by locating equipment used by the field-servicetechnician to perform the locate operation, wherein the locatingequipment comprises at least one of a marking device and a locatereceiver, and wherein A) comprises: receiving the first information fromthe locating equipment.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the firstinformation includes at least one of: a location at which the locatingequipment was used to perform the locate operation; facility-typeinformation identifying at least one underground facility for which thefield-service technician detected the presence or the absence during thelocate operation; facility location information identifying a locationof the at least one underground facility for which the field-servicetechnician detected the presence or the absence during the locateoperation; signal information identifying a signal strength measured bythe locate receiver at the location of the at least one undergroundfacility for which the field-service technician detected the presence orthe absence during the locate operation; position informationidentifying an angle or acceleration of the locating equipment duringthe location operation; and environmental information describing atleast one environmental condition present during the locate operation.7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first information comprises anelectronic manifest of the locate operation, the electronic manifestcomprising: at least one image of the work site; and at least oneelectronic marking on the image indicating the presence or the absenceof the at least one underground facility.
 8. The method of claim 7,wherein the electronic manifest further comprises first geographicinformation indicating a first location at which the electronic manifestwas created.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein B) comprises: determininga distance between the first location and a second location at which thelocate operation was requested to be performed; and determining whetherthe distance is within a predefined range.
 10. The method of claim 9,further comprising: if it is determined that the distance is within orequal to the predefined range, automatically generating the at least oneindication so as to indicate that the locate operation is approved; andif it is determined that the distance is not within the predefinedrange, automatically generating the at least one indication so as toindicate that the locate operation is unsatisfactory.
 11. The method ofclaim 1, wherein B) comprises: using first geographic informationindicating a first location of the field-service technician and secondgeographic information indicating a second location at which the locateoperation was requested to be performed to determine a distance betweenthe first location and the second location; and determining whether thedistance is within a predefined range.
 12. The method of claim 11,further comprising: if it is determined that the distance is within orequal to the predefined range, automatically generating the at least oneindication so as to indicate that the locate operation is approved; andif it is determined that the distance is not within the predefinedrange, automatically generating the at least one indication so as toindicate that the locate operation is unsatisfactory.
 13. The method ofclaim 11, further comprising: receiving ticket information including thesecond geographic information.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein C)further comprises: generating the at least one indication of the qualityassessment as a score or grade having one of a plurality of possiblevalues.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherein B) comprises: providing aplurality of quality assessment criteria; for each of the plurality ofquality assessment criteria, providing at least two scoring categories,each scoring category associated with a scoring value or grade; for eachscoring category providing an expected data value or range of expecteddata values; determining, for each of the plurality of qualityassessment criteria, into which of the at least two scoring categoriesthe locate operation falls by comparing the first information to theexpected data value or range of expected data values for at least one ofthe at least two scoring categories; for each of the plurality ofquality assessment criteria, assigning to the locate operation thescoring value or grade associated with the scoring category into whichthe locate operation falls; and combining the scoring value or gradesfor all of the quality assessment criteria to generate the at least oneindication of the quality assessment.
 16. An apparatus for facilitatingthe evaluation of a quality of a locate operation to identify a presenceor an absence of at least one underground facility at a work sitepursuant to an instruction to a field-service technician, the apparatuscomprising: at least one input/output interface; at least one tangiblestorage medium to store processor-executable instructions; and aprocessor coupled to the at least one input/output interface and the atleast one tangible storage medium, wherein upon execution of theprocessor-executable instructions by the processor, the processor: A)controls the at least one I/O interface so as to receive firstinformation describing at least one act of the field-service technicianrelating to identifying the presence or the absence of the at least oneunderground facility during performance by the field-service technicianof the locate operation following issuance of the instruction to thefield-service technician; B) electronically analyzes the firstinformation received in A) describing the at least one act of thefield-service technician; C) automatically generates, based on B), atleast one indication of a quality assessment of the locate operation,the at least one indication of the quality assessment representing thequality of the locate operation performed by the field-servicetechnician; and D) controls the at least one tangible storage medium soas to electronically store, and/or controls the at least one I/Ointerface so as to electronically transmit, the at least one indicationgenerated in C) of the quality assessment of the locate operation so asto provide an electronic record of the quality assessment of the locateoperation.
 17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the first informationdescribes at least some aspects of the locate operation as performed bythe field-service technician at the work site.
 18. The apparatus ofclaim 16, wherein in A), the processor further receives, via the atleast one I/O interface, second information relating to a description ofthe locate operation to be performed, and wherein in B), the processorelectronically analyzes the first information by comparing the firstinformation to the second information.
 19. The apparatus of claim 18,wherein the second information includes at least one of: an address forthe work site; at least one type of underground facility possiblypresent at the work site; a due date by which the locate operation is tobe completed; an image of the work site, wherein the image includeselectronic markings identifying one or more locations at whichexcavation is planned; a first indication of a complexity of the locateoperation; a second indication of an estimated cost to perform thelocate operation; a third indication of a risk assessment associatedwith the performance of the locate operation; and a textual descriptionof a type of excavation planned at the work site.
 20. The apparatus ofclaim 16, wherein the first information is generated by locatingequipment used by the field-service technician to perform the locateoperation, wherein the locating equipment comprises at least one of amarking device and a locate receiver, and wherein in A), the processorreceives the first information from the locating equipment.
 21. Theapparatus of claim 20, in combination with the locating equipment. 22.The combination of claim 21, wherein the apparatus is disposed within ahousing of the locating equipment.
 23. The apparatus of claim 20,wherein the first information includes at least one of: a location atwhich the locating equipment was used to perform the locate operation;facility-type information identifying at least one underground facilityfor which the field-service technician detected the presence or theabsence during the locate operation; facility location informationidentifying a location of the at least one underground facility forwhich the field-service technician detected the presence or the absenceduring the locate operation; signal information identifying a signalstrength measured by the locate receiver at the location of the at leastone underground facility for which the field-service technician detectedthe presence or the absence during the locate operation; positioninformation identifying an angle or acceleration of the locatingequipment during the location operation; and environmental informationdescribing at least one environmental condition present during thelocate operation.
 24. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the firstinformation comprises an electronic manifest of the locate operation,the electronic manifest comprising: at least one image of the work site;and at least one electronic marking on the image indicating the presenceor the absence of the at least one underground facility.
 25. Theapparatus of claim 24, wherein the electronic manifest further comprisesfirst geographic information indicating a first location at which theelectronic manifest was created.
 26. The apparatus of claim 25, whereinin B), the processor analyzes the electronic information by: determininga distance between the first location and a second location at which thelocate operation was request to be performed; and determining whetherthe distance is within a predefined range.
 27. The apparatus of claim26, wherein in C), if it is determined that the distance is within orequal to the predefined range, the processor automatically generates theat least one indication so as to indicate that the locate operation isapproved; and if it is determined that the distance is not within thepredefined range, the processor automatically generates the at least oneindication so as to indicate that the locate operation isunsatisfactory.
 28. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein in B), theprocessor analyzes the electronic information by: using first geographicinformation indicating a first location of the field-service technicianand second geographic information indicating a second location at whichthe locate operation was requested to be performed to determine adistance between the first location and the second location; anddetermining whether the distance is within a predefined range.
 29. Theapparatus of claim 28, wherein in C), if it is determined that thedistance is within or equal to the predefined range, the processorautomatically generates the at least one indication so as to indicatethat the locate operation is approved; and if it is determined that thedistance is not within the predefined range, the processor automaticallygenerates the at least one indication so as to indicate that the locateoperation is unsatisfactory.
 30. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein inA), the processor receives, via the at least one I/O interface, ticketinformation including the second geographic information.
 31. Theapparatus of claim 16, wherein in C), the processor generates the atleast one indication of the quality assessment as a score or gradehaving one of a plurality of possible values.
 32. The method of claim31, wherein in B), the processor electronically analyzes the firstinformation by: providing a plurality of quality assessment criteria;for each of the plurality of quality assessment criteria, providing atleast two scoring categories, each scoring category associated with ascoring value or grade; for each scoring category providing an expecteddata value or range of expected data values; determining, for each ofthe plurality of quality assessment criteria, into which of the at leasttwo scoring categories the locate operation falls by comparing the firstinformation to the expected data value or range of expected data valuesfor at least one of the at least two scoring categories; for each of theplurality of quality assessment criteria, assigning to the locateoperation the scoring value or grade associated with the scoringcategory into which the locate operation falls; and combining thescoring value or grades for all of the quality assessment criteria togenerate the at least one indication of the quality assessment.
 33. Atleast one computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructionsthat, when executed by a processor in a computer comprising at least oneinput/output (I/O) interface, perform a method for evaluating a qualityof a locate operation to identify a presence or an absence of at leastone underground facility within a work site pursuant to an instructionto a field-service technician, the method comprising: A) receiving, viathe at least one I/O interface, first information describing at leastone act of the field-service technician relating to identifying thepresence or the absence of the at least one underground facility duringperformance by the field-service technician of the locate operationfollowing issuance of the ticket to the field-service technician; B)electronically analyzing, via the at least one hardware processor, thefirst information received in A) describing the at least one act of thefield-service technician; C) automatically generating via the processor,based on B), at least one indication of a quality assessment of thelocate operation, the at least one indication of the quality assessmentrepresenting the quality of the locate operation performed by thefield-service technician; and D) electronically storing on the at leastone computer-readable storage medium, and/or electronically transmittingvia the at least one I/O interface, the at least one indicationgenerated in C) of the quality assessment of the locate operation so asto provide an electronic record of the quality assessment.